HD 'Charming'
by tigersilver
Summary: AU; EWE. Harry's been found wandering Battersea Rail Station, his memory missing since June 5th. As he's Head Auror, this a Problem. As he's been shagged, and is now being text-stalked by some anonymous Dark? Wizard, this is a Much Larger Problem!
1. Chapter 1 Stalker!

**HD 'Charming' Chapter 1**

**Prompt Number:** #169 2010 Smoochfest  
**Title:** Charming  
**Author**: .com/profile.com/profile**tigersilver**  
**Recipient**: .com/profile.com/profile**cosmic_rockstar**  
**Pairing(s):** Harry/Draco; Ron/Hermione; Blaise/Pansy  
**Summary:** Harry Potter, Head Auror and respected public figure, has been afflicted with spell-induced amnesia by an unknown assailant. He's recovering nicely after a stay at St. Mungo's but there's this one small problem: it seems he went missing on the night of June 5th and mislaid his Muggle cell phone. Now his best mates are receiving texts 'from Harry' that are all about shagging, whipped cream, handcuffs and blackmail photos. And poetry; truly execrable poetry. Someone's text-stalking Harry, much to his mates' and the Ministry's dismay, and that oddly familiar 'someone' just won't take the hint and naff off.  
**Rating:** NC-17  
**Disclaimer:** All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.  
**Warning(s):** AU, approximately eight years post-Hogwarts, Aurors!Harry & Ron, Cursebreaker!Hermione, certain canon deaths disregarded or ignored altogether.  
**Epilogue compliant?** No. Completely turns a blind eye to events of DH and canon epilogue, JKR interviews and so on, with very few exceptions.  
**Word Count:** 21,000+/-  
**Author's Notes:** I did my poor best, dear prompter, to give you what you wished for, and I'll cross my fingers and hope it works for you, though I did rather veer off on a tangent. Please forgive the fact that the 'crazy night' happened _before_ the fic begins properly (off-stage, as it were) and Harry's definite lack of return texting. I admittedly fell down in those two areas, but I hope my Charm will make up for the stumbling, as well Draco's interesting take on Muggle telephony. And why is it 'Charming', you may ask? Well, that's usually the determined, well-mannered fellow on the white charger, but Malfoy does insist on doing things his own way, so, yes. We'll just have to take him as is, on the pricey broom he flew in on, and lump it, piss-poor verse, minor tantrums, whingeing and all. Beta'd by my dear-darlings 'D' and 'L', with XOXO's to CD (Bebe!) always & 4EVR.

**Time Period: **Post-Hogwarts/EWE or AU, something to get them into the Muggle world  
**Place**: Muggle London  
**Object/Word Prompts:** cell phones, odd hours of the night, text message, cryptic words, getting to know each other/hints of the past (depending if it's post-Hogwarts or AU), Chinese food  
**Action**: Harry Potter loses his cell phone for the umpteenth time and he can't figure out where it is. Hermione and/or Ron suddenly get a text message from Harry's phone saying someone found it, but the finder isn't ready to give the phone back unless Harry follows his rules and answers his questions. After a few weeks of corresponding with the mysterious sender, Harry agrees to meet up with him and finds himself in for a weird but crazy night.  
**Preferences/Other Notes:** Witty!Draco, determined!Harry, trio bff times, Draco being a troll...how far they go once they meet up is up to the writer, longer length is preferred but not necessary. 

Chapter 1

0o0

**As noted in Head Auror Harry Potter's ****Required Daily Healing Diary****: Sunday, a.m. Nice weather; watched three cooking programmes and another on discovering the Amazon rain forest. I appear to have dahlias outside in a rather decent border. The house itself is terribly dank and dark, though. Don't know why I live here, really.**

0o0

Received on Hermione Granger's Muggle cell phone, 10 a.m., Caller ID 'Harry Potter': _Potter. Guess who? Thought that wasn't a one-off? Fucking text me back, wanker. U promised. I want to see you again. All of you. Naked. Now. _

0o0

"I'm sorry—er. _Who_ is this again?"

"It's me, Harry—Hermione. You remember me, you do."

"Um…wait, please..." There was a pause whilst Harry apparently laid his Muggle phone's handset down on something hard and wandered off. Hermione, inured after seven solid days of continuously reminding her best friend of her existence, waited patiently. She knew Harry was likely examining the Wizarding photos on his mantle for a visual clue.

"Er—" The phone sounded muffled, and then Harry's familiar voice was back at regular volume, sans the static. "Are you the ginger-haired one that's younger or the bushy-haired one with the, er, teeth?"

"Bushy," Hermione replied shortly and tapped her biro on the kitchen counter of her London flat. Next to her, Ron Weasley muffled a snort. "And that photo's terribly old, Harry. You should replace it with one of the newer ones."

"Oh. Right, then. Yeah, I think so—why?" Harry asked suspiciously. "Was I supposed to be doing something again? You know I don't remember—"

"Yes, Harry, I do know," Hermione interrupted, not wanting to hear Harry go on and on about how he couldn't recall much of anything and had quite forgotten why that was—yet again. "Look, someone's found your personal cell phone—do you remember losing it somewhere?"

"Cell phone?" Harry's voice sounded very vague for an instant through the suddenly crackly connection. "Um…do I have one of those?" And yes, he seemed rather excited, as well, Hermione noted. "Hey, the telly has these really fascinating adverts for those, er—Harmony—Herm—Miss—_Who_ are you again?"

"Yes, Harry, you do indeed possess a Muggle cell phone," Hermione gritted her teeth. "As do we all, as it's no longer the Dark Ages. And it's Hermione." No one could possibly claim the past seven days had been in any way pleasurable, however, despite the happy fact Harry was alive and mostly well. "And apparently you've mislaid it, because someone's sending me rude texts from it."

"Tests?"

"Texts, Harry. Short written messages."

"On the phone? I thought they were only meant for speaking over, Harmony—"

"Merlin! Not that again! It's _Hermione_, Harry—Her-mi-o-nee. Look, er, just stop, Harry—I can't take talking to you when you're like this! Not without more caffeine in my system, at least. Here, speak to Ron instead. He wants to ask after you anyway."

Having borne all the usual frustration with Harry's bland blankness she reasonably could (without grinding her long since corrected and utterly lovely white teeth to so much plaque-free dust), Hermione gratefully switched on the counter speaker with a wave of her wand and turned the conversation over to her helpmeet and live-in boyfriend, Ronald Weasley. Her research books were calling her insistently and somewhere, buried in one of them, there had to be a counter spell that would foreshorten Harry's natural healing process by days, if not weeks. Harry's Healer said it might exist, although St, Mungo's hadn't fussed over it, as he'd recover his memories naturally and with no ill effects. But Harry wasn't a regular patient. By no means. He was the Head Auror and Hermione was of the staunch opinion that if _she _didn't find a way to fix this situation soon, they'd _all _go bloody spare.

"Hi, Rob! Harmony said to chat with you, instead. How're you doing? How about those Cannons?" Harry's cheerful though somewhat tinny voice came through the magicked Muggle speaker-phone and Hermione Granger let her head fall onto the kitchen table with an audible, dispairing groan.

An Obliviate was one thing—and fully understandable and thus reversible with a simple incantation—but this on-again, off-again spotty memory loss of Harry's infuriated her sensibilities beyond all that was reasonable. Harry, for instance, recalled the oddest facts (the Cannon scores for three seasons running) and then couldn't remember a single sodding thing about the more important stuff: his job, his friends, his daily life. It was all the fault of an unidentified Dark Wizard; of that, Hermione Granger was totally convinced. But _how_ Harry had ended up being so careless as to allow it to happen and _whatever_ he'd been doing the night of June 5th that rendered him so sadly vulnerable, Hermione couldn't begin to second guess. There'd been no witnesses and no evidence of assault whatsoever and Harry, as he'd said over and over when questioned, simply couldn't recall.

He'd been found in Muggle Battersea, of all strange places, wandering the Park Rail station, babbling on about 'white knights in shining armour' and 'impossible gits', along with a load of other miscellaneous nonsense. Seeing him in his bed at St. Mungo's, his eyes confused and unknowing, she'd never been so frightened in her life, at least not since the days of Voldemort. But the worst was over; Harry was safe and sound and she'd sworn to herself she'd get to the root of this whole imbroglio-somehow, some way-and find him a cure for this rare and obscure Charm the St Mungo's Healers said Harry had been cursed with.

So, the bugger was similar to an Obliviate, yes, but instead utilized Blood Magic and was therefore not easy to be rid of in the absence of the caster. It would fade all on its own, Harry's Healer informed them, and then rabbitted on calmly about not being concerned as there'd be no residual damage. But it was a time-consuming process, remembering a life of twenty-five odd years, and Harry had a crucial post in the Ministry that was going hanging in the meantime, with huge responsibilities the Healers likely couldn't even begin to imagine.

Yes, she'd do this, Hermione swore again silently, her Cursebreaker's soul full of fervour. She'd damned well free Harry, even if it sent her barking in the process!

Whether Harry cooperated or not.

0o0


	2. Chapter 2 & 3 Creepy Stalker!

**HD 'Charming' Chapters 2 & 3**

Chapter 2

o0o

**Monday p.m.: Weather clear; ate takeaway Muggle Chinese for supper. I remember that I like that. Some people whom I'm supposed to know from before stopped over the house and stayed for absolute ages. This place **_**is **_**bloody awful, by the way. I fucking **_**hate**_** it.**

o0o

Message on Hermione Granger's personal Muggle cell phone, approximately 2 p.m., Caller ID 'Harry Potter': _Git. Ignoring me, are U? Now U pay. Perishing miniaturized buttons on this rubbishing thing, what? How do you even manage to _SEE _them, Four Eyes?_

o0o

Message received at 6 p.m., Caller ID 'Harry Potter': _Didn't mean that last, sorry. Wasn't being rude, really. Just ring me. __**Ring YOURSELF**__, for that matter, you stupidly forgetful berk, on your __**OWN**__ Merlin-forsaken Mugglular fellytone, so I may arrange to return this infernal gizmo of yours to you in the flesh! I want to see your stupid ugly face when I do so, Harry Potter; no cheating me of my proper due by simply sending an Owl or a courier Wizard, you contrary bastard. I bloody __**NEED**__ to see you, capiche? I can't stop thinking about how you taste & smell & feel. Beneath me—in me. Just ring me up, alright? Right now. As soon as humanly possible. It's been nearly a sennight already; I MISS U, stupid git._

o0o

"Listen, Harry, we simply _must_ locate your cell phone! It's important! It could be a valuable clue! Tell me, d'you recall _anything_ more about where you've might have been these last few weeks—anything _at all_ that's new or different or—or weird? Clubs? Bars? Muggle places? Or maybe who might've been with you? Someone you may've pulled? A one-off? A friend we don't know about? I _know_ there's shite you don't tell us, Harry, but, by Godric's Blade, this is _crucial_!"

The tall, long-limbed, ginger-haired man examined Harry intently with tired, bloodshot blue eyes, his large hands clenched on his knees so tightly his knuckles had whitened. His freckles stood out in pale relief on his earnest, imploring face. He was fidgeting and even a little sweaty, even as he attempted to sit still, and _that_, for whatever reason, ticked his host off even more than having his parlour invaded unannounced for the bloody umpteenth time that day.

Harry glared at the chap from his perch on the corner cushion of his shabby, much-mended leather sofa and wondered why he should bother to answer all these many questions of Rob's. It wasn't as if he actually _knew_ this nosy idiot. It wasn't as if he, personally, gave a buggering fuck. In fact, bloody rotten _cheek_, this 'Rob' fellow had, popping in and out of Harry's hearth whenever he bloody well felt like it and poking at Harry day and night with endless intimate queries, one right after the other, like a bloody never-ending missile barrage. And then there was that confounded pesky Witch, 'Harmony something'—_she_ was as bossy as ever could be, always telling Harry he had to do this, that and the other. Wouldn't go away, either, even when he asked her politely.

Oh, yes, it'd been comforting for the first few days, especially when he'd first been released from that hospital, Saint Mango's. He'd no family of his own, apparently, and no steady love interest, so it had been utterly brill to learn he'd best mates who cared so much about him they'd drop everything when they heard he was hurt and come running, and he'd been absolutely thrilled and relieved beyond belief to have _anyone at all _come forwardand claimthey knew who he was, as _he_ certainly didn't.

Er—know himself, that was. No; Harry, as it turned out, was the unfortunate victim of spell-based amnesia and, to be frightfully forthright, he didn't know squat, these days. Well, he instinctively knew some things: like magic (how to use his wand, how to charm the dishes clean, or _Accio_ a bottle of butterbeer from the cool box); and being an actual Wizard, which was bleeding fan-fucking-tastic; and of course, little things like whether or not he was allergic to kneazles (he wasn't) and also if he followed the Cannons (he did) or preferred stout over ale (stout, every time). There were cartloads of things he simply _knew_. Truly. However, he _didn't_ recall his own name (apparently it was 'Harry'— 'Harry Potter', and he was bloody famous, to boot!) or the name of the current Minister of Magic (Kingsley Shacklebolt, a quite intimidatingly tall, powerful, older Wizard with whom Harry was supposed to be acquainted personally, but wasn't, _now_) or where he'd been on the night of June the 5th (true, there _was_ a vague feeling of soppy, sexually-oriented joy tied to that lost evening, but Harry didn't know _why_, precisely.)

It was all a fecking great puzzle. Harry hated puzzles, nearly as much as he hated his ruddy house.

And no one—but _no one_!— had taken the time to explain the weird zigzag scar on his forehead, either, which looked to have been a fairly deep one and never quite healed properly. Disturbing, what?

More than _disturbing_; friggin' annoying!

So Harry sneered at the tiresome berk peering so earnestly at him, swilling down yet another one from Harry's personal stash of butterbeer. He was sick and tired of being continually interrogated under the guise of well-wishing, first by this chap Rob and then by that good two-shoes Harmony, and then by a whole host of others, none of whom he recognized, none of whom he had even invited into his blasted home! Too, he was irked at their balking whenever _he_ asked the questions. _Why _would they not cooperate with him? _What _were they all hiding? And _why_ did he have to record every single thing he did in that sodding Diary, like a buggering schoolboy?

Therefore, Harry—as he now knew himself to be—having reached a certain boiling point in his life, firmly resolved to dig his mental heels in like an obdurate ass and sit utterly silent in the face of this ongoing idiocy, simply refusing to reply to _any_ question—standing his ground, really, Harry decided, with silent self-approbation. But…Rob-the-ginger-git here was still on at him, regardless, never shutting up, never ceasing. The man never seemed to know when to shut it.

"Come _on_, Harry," Rob was saying, waving one of Harry's last remaining butterbeers about as it were his own bleeding wand. "You simply _must _tell me what you _do_ know," Rob pleaded. "We're running of out of facts to work with here—we need a _real _lead, Harry, and there must be something!"

His obvious distress at Harry's piss-poor attitude was rather amusing, Harry decided, feeling snidely gleeful. This made up, in part, for all the stress-and-bother_ he'd_ been shoved under, lying in his unfamiliar bed every night, searching his uncooperative brain matter for 'valuable clues' to his own sodding identity.

It wasn't fair, Harry determined, and thinned his lips disagreeably.

"You're an _Auror_, Harry, remember? _The _Head Auror, for Merlin's sake! It's a fucking huge security breach, you losing your phone!" the idiot git was babbling on. "You're likely in serious danger from that _alone_, Harry! Merlin know's what kind of classified Ministry gen you've got on that thing—and everyone's upset—it's getting no better—don't you see the _gravity_?"

"No, I do _not_, Rob," Harry shot back, clutching his own precious bottled beverage fiercely, heedless of the amber glass cracking under his clenched fingers. There was only so much whingeing a recuperating St. Mango's Spell Damage Ward patient could take, sod it! "I don't 'see' at all and, what's more, I'm bloody well sick of this shite! I don't want to! I can't be forced to! I _do_ know my full legal rights as a British Wizarding citizen, Richard, so just bugger off, will you? Leave, please—and Floo first, next time, Rick—oh! Wait…erm, your name _is _Robert, isn't it? Or are you that other one—Nigel? Colin? No, _hold up_. They've both dark hair, don't they…? Oh, gods! I _hate_ this! And _you_, for that matter, Robert! I hate you, too!"

"_Ron_, Harry. Ron is my first name," the man waved his unencumbered hand in the air, helpless but steadfast. "I'm Ron Weasley, and I'm your best mate ever since we met on the Express to Hogwarts, I am—we'd Frogs and—and you bought out the trolley, you did, and—and we_ work_ together now, right? I see you nearly every single _day_, Harry, and have for most of my life now! You can't just up and forget all about me! And –and _Hermione_, too! She's flipping the feck out over all this mess! Frantic with worry over you, mate! For Merlin's sake, Harry, the Healers said you were supposed to be better soon! Get _better_, why don't you!"

The Ron bloke buried his head in his large hands and proceeded to attempt to yank his memorable hair out strand by strand, from what Harry could tell, apparently not caring at all that the mass of red was getting sticky from Harry's purloined butterbeer.

"Um," Harry said, not at all helpfully.

"I can't stand it," the man was still mumbling, sloshing yet more of his borrowed brew onto a wide red-robed shoulder. "I don't rightly know what to _do_—not anymore, Harry." He sounded really miserable, too. _Distraught_, even, Harry thought. It was downright pitiful. "_You're_ fucking hopeless, mate—no help at all! You don't know bloody fucking _anything_ anymore!" he wailed, and Harry winced, because the Rob chap seemed really sincerely torn by his plight—yelping aside—and it made Harry's chest hurt something fierce, for some unknown reason. He'd not expected to actually _care_ about someone he didn't know from Salazar, damn it!

"Er," Harry said, now vastly uncomfortable, and really just wanting it to stop. There was a programme he'd been waiting to watch, in any case, due to begin any moment. "No. Ah…er, Rob—perhaps. You could, erm—or maybe."

"Really, mate, I can't _think_ how we're ever going to manage in the meantime without you," Rob whinged right on at a steady pace, his dolorous drone tromping over Harry's small attempts to redirect the subject. "Not that's it _your_ fault, Harry. We're just fucked, that's all, if this goes on much longer, what with the Minister constantly after our arses in Aurors to fix you up and then the whole bleeding department Headless as Nick's ghost; oh, gods…oh, _gods_." Rob subsided into a miserable heap, still muttering darkly. "And poor Hermione—she's at wit's end now, mate. Doesn't know where to turn next."

Robert lifted his head suddenly and stared Harry straight in the eyes, gaze burning brilliant with barely stuffed-back emotion—and were those…tears? Harry ducked his chin down instantly, breaking the staring contest.

Tears—crying of any sort—left him feeling horribly inadequate. He'd the sneaking suspicion they did that even when he'd had all his memories intact. He shrugged, cheeks flushing. "Look, Rob, it's alright, really—" he began, rather at a dead loss as to what to say. "I mean. You don't have to get all bent out of shape about it."

"What'll we _do_, Harry?" Rob demanded fiercely, ignoring him and shaking the innocent bottle something awful. It promptly bubbled up and over. "Oh, Merlin, mate—what'll we ever _do_? We_ miss_ you!"

"Um, yes, thanks for that," Harry said, after an excruciatingly uncomfortable moment of sipping at his own brew slowly (just for something to occupy himself with, as he all the while discreetly kept one eye on the clock and the other peeled on Rob, as he twitched and shifted in the single ratty old armchair Harry's parlour boasted— and then of course _immediately_ glancing away from the oddly gut-wrenching sight, when he couldn't stand watching any longer.) The poor bastard clogging up his parlour wasn't calming down one bit, it seemed, despite the cessation of Harry's own overt hostility, and was still nattering on and on under his breath about 'total disasters' and 'dire emergencies'.

"Rob, er," Harry spoke up, finally, tiring of doom-and-gloom. "Pardon me, but. You're, uh, not one of those self-harming fellows, are you? 'Cause on the telly, just the other day, in fact, there was this programme about people who have that tendency—it happens, you know-and how there's this charge-free number now you can ring up for advice on your problems, whatever they are—so, maybe. You might, erm…be interested? In ringing that, I meant?"

He shrugged his shoulders slightly, and kept his eyes firmly averted, in case he'd just embarrassed the Ron person by bring up some deeply buried…issue. Not that Rob ever seemed to bury his issues. No, he spewed them all over Harry's living room, instead.

"Merlin Almighty!" Rob swore, ripping his head from where it had again rested within his broad palms, to stare at his host aghast, blue eyes popping. "You can't _possibly_ be serious, mate! _Can_ you? _Arrghh_! You _are_, aren't you?" he accused, when Harry's eyes widened. "You think I've gone bloody _mental_, don't you? I can't bloody well fucking _believe_ this!"

Rising abruptly, Rob began to furiously pace Harry's threadbare carpet, the butterbeer bottle at the risk of serious harm from the way his was flinging his long arms about. Finally, he put his other hand up, palm flat and fingers spread, as if he were warding Harry off.

There was a moment of blessed silence, whilst Robert swallowed hard, closed his eyes and took a deep, cleansing breath.

"Look, Harry, just don't talk to me for now, not another word—just, _please_. Forget I asked—forget I said a sodding thing, alright? I'll—I'll simply let Hermione and the Ministry know you're not quite ready yet, okay? The Healers at St. Mungo's have the right of it. We'll have to wait this one out, that's all. Let it all blow over. I _know _you'll remember, Harry; probably wake up tomorrow morning and it'll all be right there in your head again, mark my words."

"Sure," Harry shrugged placidly, more than glad to see the dramatics were over—for the nonce. "Absolutely, Rob. Whatever you say."

"Right," Rob replied, with conviction. "_Right_." With a resounding plop, he sat his arse back down in the protesting chair and wriggled it, getting comfy. "So, yeah. What's on your Muggle telly set now, mate? I'll watch it with you, alright?"

"Er…sure, Rob," Harry responded, reluctantly. "Um, I usually watch _Masterchef_ re-runs right about now. And then _Fawlty Towers_. And then _Black Adder_. That alright?"

"It's great, mate!" Rob answered enthusiastically, draining his beer. "Towers are good, even crumbly ones—I like 'em. Makes me feel, er, nostalgic, like—for Gryffindor, see? Well, anyway! And we can, um—perhaps we can take in one of those Muggle ball-and-foot matches Dean's always going on about after, yeah? Got any snacks lying about? More beer?"

"…Sure, Rob," Harry sighed, resigned to watching all his various hordes of stuff disappear into the lanky chap's maw. That was the _other_ problem with this 'Ron' guy: he bloody well gobbled up all of Harry's staple snackfoods and all the alcohol in the paltry pantry every single time he popped in for one these _ad hoc_ 'sharing sessions'. "Um, help yourself."

Git.

"Since you always do," he said to the doorway Rob had just disappeared through. "Leech."

He heaved another huffing sigh and grimly switched on the telly, using his wand as a remote. Yes, it fussed Harry no end when his so-called _mates_ kept on at him, but—just as everyone else who'd come to visit him since he'd been released from St. Mango's did—Rob would take himself off again eventually and leave Harry in peace in his horrible house. It had happened every single day like clockwork, exactly that same way, ever since he'd left hospital: hours of pointless grilling, and then too, Harmony and these other grim Auror chaps intoning over him and forcing him to drink Potions and stand about in chalked-up pentacles and whatnot.

If only all this endless worriment over the state of Harry's head didn't leave him feeling as if he were adrift in a sea of ambiguity, it wouldn't be such a bad life, having lie-ins daily and catching up on all the programmes his Muggle DVDR had recorded over the last few months. But he _did_ mind, and it _did_ feel queer, and Harry _wasn't_ happy—not one bit. He despised being forced to confront his sense of loss, when he knew exactly _where_ and _when_ he was, and even a little of _who_, now, if not _why_, precisely. It reminded him of—of—what?

Chapter 3

o0o

**Tuesday a.m. Raining all morning. Chilly, with a damp that seeps into the bones. Had breakfast with an older Witch and a young boy who changes his hair and eye colour continuously. Odd, that. Very whimsical. The kid likes me, though. The lady is a worrywart, always fussing over me, but still, the old bag's a bit of an alright. She's got a very nice smile, too. We're related?**

o0o

Message received on Ron Weasley's personal Muggle cell phone, 11 a.m., Caller ID 'Harry Potter':_ Potter? This isn't amusing. Text me back. Or I'll inform the entire world UR prick's the same size you are: short & weedy. Not bad overall, tho'. Did the job alright. We'd a proper orgy, didn't we just? Look, fucking get back to me, Potter; I don't appreciate being left hanging. Ring me up on UR cell if you can't remember my number; Owl me; come see me home or at work; you've all my contacts! I wrote everything down for U so you wouldn't go off and forget me again, you silly wanker. My card's in the vest pocket of your Muggle jacket, idiot. Just go look, alright? You won't regret it, Harry. I promise I meant every word I said to you that night, all joking aside. _

o0o

Shopping was an adventure. Harry hated it and loved it. He liked watching the milling crowds and he was fond of bookstores and coffee shops in particular, but he didn't appreciate being stared at, and he didn't like deciding what to buy. Eggplants were eggplants; shirts were shirts, and why this 'Minnie' or 'Moanie'—er, 'Harmony' woman—kept on and on about roughage and the importance of not clashing, he'd never know, nor care, particularly. And that damned Muggle cell phone business—why did that keep raising its ugly noggin? Rob and Harmony never shut up about it and then there were the other people—grim blokes in red robes popping up on his hearth at all hours—poking their noses in and asking Harry the same questions, over and over:

'Do you recall any of the events of the evening of June 5th, sir?' 'Would you tell us what you do remember, in detail?' 'Do you know anyone in Battersea, sir?' 'Does anyone have a grudge against you, sir, to your knowledge?' 'Did you meet up with someone that night, sir? Someone you know? A Wizard? A Witch? A Muggle? Sir! _Sir_! _Please _pay attention!'

They'd even brought him a huge ring-bound book with pictures in it to sort through: Wizarding photos, the occupants sneering at him from behind bars or in a straggly line-up of sorts, all clad in dreary shades of grey and with long numbers printed on their robes, scrawled right across their chests. He was made to scan it over and then repeatedly quizzed as to whether he recognized anyone amongst the Death Eaters (that's what they called these particular people, and Harry found the term quite hilarious. What the feck was someone who 'ate death', anyway? A vampire? A ghost?) _And_, one of the Aurors (an older man with an exceedingly strange pair of corrective lenses), had tried to slip Harry some sort of Potion—_Veritaserum_, he called it—so that he could peer unobstructed into Harry's buried memories.

"Harry."

Harry had resisted, naturally. Vehemently. No one was going traipsing through his mind if he didn't want them to, and besides, he'd a feeling there was this important 'thing' he was forgetting…an unidentifiable 'thing' that was his and his alone. He felt quite proprietary over it and he'd be thrice cursed if he was letting strangers take pokes at it.

"_Harry_."

Harry had the impression the woman with the memorable hair had repeated his name several times already. "Harry, are remembering things again? You look funny. Somebody you spoke to? Somewhere you've never been? I still don't understand this Battersea aspect, you know. That just doesn't make any sense to me at all. " Harmony's tone was cautiously curious; still, Harry had no interest in making nice. His head was pounding. "I don't think you've ever even been to Battersea."

"Huh?"

Harry felt up the eggplants in the bin right under his nose to avoid the necessity of meeting her searching eyes. She kept insisting she was one his very best mates and they'd been close for ages, but Harry didn't think there were _any_ mates in the world that were as motherly, as nosey and as interfering as this lady was. She was a right pain in his bum cheeks, this woman-who-was-_not_-called-Harmony.

"Look, er…um," he decided to skip the whole sorry process of attempting to recall her proper name. He'd a bit of a mental block on that one, he'd decided. Every time he thought he'd nailed it, it escaped him again, and then her lips tightened when he fumbled, and Harry could just tell she was irritated with him. 'Irritated' translated into additional prodding, and the woman was bung full of questions already. "I told you a million times—there's nothing. Nada, zilch, zip. I can't remember; I _don't_ remember; I don't know _what_ it is all of you think I'm supposed to be remembering and I'm damned tired of trying, alright? Makes my head hurt something awful."

"Harry…" The woman cast her eyes on the eggplants Harry was telling over and quickly assessed them for colour and ripeness. "Oh—buy this one. It's the best of the lot—here you go." She handed it over and not knowing what else to do with it, Harry put it in his trolley. He didn't think he really liked the taste of eggplant, but whatever. The colour was nice, at least. Better than severed elf heads, certainly. He'd put it on his mantle, for decoration.

The bushy-haired woman—well, her hair was really much better now, and he shouldn't refer to her that way, Harry decided, even in his head. It wasn't nice. She shifted a bit on her feet nervously and stared at the array of tinned sardines, squid and other ocean delicacies, her face going pink round the edges.

"Well, er—look, the thing is, someone's been trying to reach you, Harry, sending these really strange texts, and we think perhaps—perhaps, well. Perhaps you may've had relations with that person. The night you, um, forgot everything."

"Relations?"

"Erm—shagging," Harmony blushed furiously. "You know—sex. We think you might've shagged the message sender, Harry. Or perhaps they shagged you. It's not clear, really."

"Was I any good?"

"What?"

"Did they say if I was any good?" Harry was very interested in _that_, at least. First inkling he'd been given of having a personal life of any sort. One would've thought he was a bloody sacrificial virgin, given the utter dearth of people interested in him _that_ way!

"_Harry_!"

o0o

"Look, Ron, we're getting absolutely nowhere on this," Hermione shook her weary head and then sent a hand across the top, causing tendrils to curl riotously out of her French braid. "_I_ can't manage to find a single, solitary means to cure him of this awful amnesia; the Healers at St. Mungo's are of _no_ help whatsoever! You and your bloody Aurors_ can't_ seem locate Harry's cell phone or even determine where else he was that night or _why_ he was at Battersea in the first place or really _anything_ that's even _remotely_ useful and it's all _stupid_, that's what it is! Stupid, stupid, stupid! It makes no sense! _None_ of it, Ron! He _can't_ have simply disappeared into thin air like that for a whole night—but he _did_! _Nobody_ curses Harry like that and gets away with it—but they _did_! They _have_! And we'll need his memory back again—full and _intact_, Ronald Weasley—if we're_ ever_ going to get to the bottom of this and find the blasted Dark Wizard who cast this stupid Curse in the first place! I simply _can't_ do it alone!"

She dropped her forehead on the kitchen table and banged it, twice, subsiding into grouchy silence.

"I know, Hermione," Ron said carefully, thankful she'd ceased her tirade for the moment. "I _know_ you haven't. I know _we_ haven't, in Aurors, which is why you're involved in this at _all_. But I don't see what else we can be doing other than what we already are! We're asking all the right questions, Hermione, but he's just not responding—"

"Oh, for Merlin's sake, Ron!" Hermione interrupted him. "Why do you even bother calling them Aurors when they can't manage to locate their bloody scarlet arses for a hole in the ground? What exactly _do _you people do in that department all day? Play Tiddlywinks?"

"Hermione!" Ron exclaimed, stung. "Now, you know that's not fair! We're bloody well trying, damn it! We're doing everything we can!"

"Pfft!"

With a loud huff, Hermione resumed her quick pacing their flat's kitchen, her movements sharp and economical. Even when walking off her frustration, as she so often did, she wasted no motion. But her boyfriend was far more concerned about the wand she held in hand, its sharp tip bobbing this way and that as she spun. Hermione was quite a mean spellcaster—with a meaner right-hook, besides—and she was well beyond irritated both with Harry _and _his lamentable situation. Honestly, Ron could practically hear her teeth cracking from two yards away!

His girlfriend (ever since the days of good old Hogwarts, Merlin bless him!) absolutely abhorred a vacuum—of information. Facts and figures were her lifeblood; logical data sequencing her food and drink. She hated mysteries with a passion, did his sweet Hermione, and this one in particular was driving her batty. Never before had she come across a spell, hex or charm she couldn't track down to its source and break into whimpering little bits, or even a stubborn set of contrary factoids and evidence she couldn't ultimately dissect and sort using her considerable brainpower, and to fail so ignominiously _now_, when it was _their_ Harry's mental health at stake, was literally driving her right off her nut.

Ron felt for her; he really did.

For all of them, really, but more so for his poor old best mate, stuck mouldering in that rotten Grimmauld Place with nothing to do but watch daytime soaps and simply try to _remember_. It just didn't seem right for the Great Harry Potter to wind up at the mercy of a spotty, malfunctioning, bollixed-up brainbox! It was just—just so very _wrong_!

Besides, the Auror department was rapidly going to Hades in a handbasket without Harry at the helm, and the sooner that was righted, the better—he utterly _despised_ mandatory overtime!

"Er, Hermione," Ron offered tentatively, having racked his brain to think of something, _anything_ the Aurors hadn't tried already, all to no avail. "Maybe we should run one of those DNA tests the Muggles have—you know, check out the, um, leavings? Like they do in the crime-solving programmes? I remember the Healers said Harry had some leftover, uh, erm, ah—_you know_," Ron blushed bright scarlet and sucked in a harsh breath through his nose, "ah, what you call _semen_ on him—in him. If they've kept a sample of it, perhaps we could match it up or—or _something_?"

He faltered at the look that dawned on his beloved's pretty features. It was a curious mix of disgusted horror and purely scientific interest. Hermione came out of her trance after a second of staring blankly and waved her wand tip absentmindedly in his direction. Ron flinched automatically, with ill-disguised trepidation.

"Oy! Watch it with that thing, Hermione!"

"Ooooh! Ronald!" Now, his girlfriend was practically bouncing on her toes, her hair doing the bobbing thing, too. "You are one horrid, ill-mannered, sewer-minded _freak_ to even suggest that! But it's brilliant—_brilliant_!—and I hadn't even thought for a second—! Oh, Ron! _Of course_ the Healers took samples! _Of course_ we can track it! I must Floo St. Mungo's right this very minute!"

"Er, that's…great," Ron cheered on their abruptly empty kitchen, his girlfriend having rushed off the hearth in the miniscule living room. "Great, Hermione."

He sighed, and stuck his head in his hands.

"Glad to be of service, yeah?" he muttered, relaxing finally now that he'd gotten _that_ over with.

_Ew_! _What_ he'd just said! And to _Hermione_, of all people! It didn't bear thinking of!

Ron shuddered.

His best mate's sexual preference wasn't something Ron Weasley ever liked to consider in any great depth or detail, but _not_ because Harry was bisexual or perhaps even a little gayer than mere bi. Ron didn't give a bloody flying fuck about _that_ part of it—it was more thinking of Harry as someone who got off his rocks with other people (possibly _lots_ of other people) when Ron was used to thinking of him as simply just another brother amongst many. Brothers didn't go 'round doing things like shagging random blokes—for Merlin's sake, they were _brothers, _not normal_ people_!

Ew! _Feh_! Blech!

Well, thankfully Hermione was back on track and eventually she'd sort it out, one way or another—_or_ Harry would just regain his memory properly in the meanwhile, as the Healers kept assuring the increasingly concerned Ministry and Harry's various intimates he would, given time enough to do so.

It _was_ just a matter of time, really, and Ron had no doubt it'd prove to be a right sticky cock-up before it was all tied neatly and put to rest in the Auror's closed files. This _was_ Harry Potter, after all—the Bloke Who'd Saved the Bloody Wizarding World—and Harry attracted difficulties and complications (_and_ stalkers, sexual and otherwise) same as iron filings adhered to a strong magnet. Ron had never really expected any less of his best mate.

o0o


	3. Chapter 4 Harry is Puzzled

**HD 'Charming' Chapter 4**

**o0o**

**Wednesday a.m. Weather damp and misty; cold front coming in, per the BBC Weather forecasters. If they were spellcasters instead, would we still have all this lousy weather? Do the farmers pay the blokes extra for all this eternal frigging rain? Something smells fishy here. I detect a conspiracy. No one single nation should be subject to this much precipitation. **

**o0o**

Message on Luna Lovegood's iPhone as of 6:00 a.m. Greenwich, Caller ID 'Harry Potter': _Lovegood, honestly, what the bloody fuck is up with stupid Potter? Tell him to ring himself. Soonest. DM_

Message on Ron Weasley's Auror-issued Muggle cell phone as of noon, Greenwich, Caller ID 'Harry Potter': _Let that tosser know I've 12 very embarrassing pix of him cuffed to my headboard, all angles. Be more than happy to forward his terribly photogenic cock to the Prophet if I must in order to get some action on UR part, Weasel. Not joking. Not joking __**AT ALL**__, Weasel._

Message on Pansy Parkinson's incredibly pricey, elite marque of Muggle cell phone/PA/MP3 player, just before 2 p.m., Greenwich, Caller ID 'Draco Malfoy': _Pans, he's not getting back to me. Now what the bloody fuck do I DO?_

**o0o**

Garbled voice mail on Blaise Zabini's Floo message-taking device, at approximately 4 p.m. Wedneday: _"Hey, isshmee. Ish shoddin' teatime or somethin'; I doan' know. Jush Floo the bloody fuck over 'n bring your lassh schtepdaddy's brandeee with you—[Static. Long pause, with various inaudible thumps.] Fuckin' workin' schhhtiff, Shhaabinineee. Why'd you ever haf' ta go and schnag a stooped job? Are'n' you rissshhh enou' already? An' schnap it up, for Shalazar's shake! I don' care wha' the fuck you're wearin'! Don' wanna shhag or nothin'—jussh talk or—or somethin'. [Second long static-filled pause; followed by a sharp, reedy inhalation and an inelegant snort.] Somethin'!"_

**o0o**

"Harry," Rob said patiently, "your Healer says you're to write more gen in your Healing Journal. Details, mate. You need to be jotting down absolutely everything you feel, or do, or remember. I don't care how unimportant it seems to you now—the Healer says it all helps you to bring your memories back faster, and if that's what it takes to make this happen soonest, Harry, than that's what you'll have to do. Healer's orders, mate."

Rob nodded at his own words, leaning forward, looking very earnest indeed.

"Wha'? Why?" Harry demanded querulously, fumbling himself into a slightly more upright position. He'd a quick nap on the sofa that afternoon and he was discovering he wasn't the type to wake up cheerful. He adjusted himself with a grunt and stretched, yawning luxuriously. "I remember plenty already, Rob. And I have been writing it all down, so there! Don't see why you need any more."

"Ron," the freckly fellow interjected, for possibly the hundredth time altogether. "It's Ron, Harry. Remember that, now."

"Sod off! And I don't give a flying fuck, _Robert_," Harry snapped back._ "_what your name is! That's the _last_ thing I'm worried about! Look, _I'm_ not the one in the buggering rush here, _Robert_, so why should I force it? It's all of you people, bothering me endlessly. Bloody cramp in my recuperating arse, I'll tell you!"

"_Ron_. As in 'Ronald', Harry," the man replied, demonstrating yet even more of his overt and infernally irritating 'patience', much as if he were conversing with a precocious two-year old, mid-tantrum. "My name is Ronald Weasley. At least try to keep _that_ in mind, mate. You're hurting my feelings here, you know? …Though, come to think of it, the Healer _did_ warn us you'd get testier as your mind healed from the curse—"

Rob (_oh, alright, __Ron, _Harry huffed internally_) _stopped gabbling long enough to cogitate over this conundrum, his brilliantly coloured brows quirked at an inquisitive angle and his lips slightly pursed. For whatever reason, that particular expression on that specific mild, somewhat vacant visage ticked Harry off immensely. The fact that Rob had evidently helped himself to Harry's limited supply of butterbeers also irked him. Why the bloody fuck _should _he care if Rob here had his ickle little feelings hurt? What about _him_? _He_ was the one sick and tired of being treated as an invalid and an imbecile when he felt perfectly well—in fact, just bloody spiffing! _He_ was the one being hounded!

With a snort, Harry sat forward on his ancient cushion and glared.

"Look, sod _off_, Robert. Stop asking me! I don't even know you! Why should _I _care about your feelings? Give me one good reason!" Harry couldn't prevent the malice that crept unwillingly into his tone; really, he couldn't; he'd had enough, already! More than enough; the whole lot of these patient, concerned mates of his should all simply cease fire and call it a day! He'd get there when he got there and not a moment sooner! And then there were the bleeding Aurors to deal with—and don't dare let him get started on 'sharing' with his Journal how he felt about that lot!

Rob, wincing, shifted uneasily from foot to foot before the hearth he'd Flooed through unannounced, whilst Harry was still napping. He was clearly aware he'd offended, which was at least _something_. Then he sat his rump with a dust-raising 'whomp' on the uncomfortable armchair in Harry's shabby and somewhat sparse drawing room. His capable fingers caressed the long neck of his butterbeer bottle as if it could give him comfort in the face of Harry's obvious ire. He'd apparently raided the coolbox whilst Harry was still asleep, all uninvited. He'd done the exact same thing the day previous, too! It was—it was unconscionable of this Rob bloke, filching another bloke's butterbeer without so much as asking!

Harry's glare intensified, the green poisonous when he noticed Rob fidgeted with the purloined butterbeer. "Huh!" he huffed, unable to bear it. "So, you're a thief, then, as well as a nosy prick!"

"Harry, look," Rob, red-faced, hurried to cover his error with yet more talking. "Don't be like this, alright? I'm on your side, okay? Really, I am. I know it's hard; I know you're frustrated, but you simply have to—"

"You don't know _anything_, Robert," Harry broke in, his voice clipped and sharp as tacks. "Not a bleeding thing. And I'll write down as much as I feel like in that fucking Healing Diary and not a word more. That Harmony woman you're shacked up with copies everything I write over again in fucking copperplate _before_ she gives it over to the Healer, because she says my handwriting's 'as bad as chicken scratch'! Talk about people bloody _hurting your feelings_, Robert! I didn't ask for any of this shite, you realize, old mate, old pal—and I'm not going to sit here like a bump on a bloody log and listen to you whinging about _your_ problems with me not healing fast enough to suit you! Like I said—sod off!"

"Harry—"

Harry glared some more, feeling entirely justified, and then settled himself more firmly on the couch, tucking his legs up and under him. He Accio'd one his few remaining butterbeers wandlessly whilst Ron watched, evidently gobstoppered, and proceeded to open it with a flourish, taking his time to twist out the cork.

"Er, mate," Robert tried again. Harry stopped him with the flat of his palm.

"Shut it, will? Look here, _Robert_, I'm intending to watch this programme I've recorded, alright? I've been looking forward to it all day; it's on dolphins and their shrinking habitats. And I _do_ happen to remember that I like dolphins and I'm terribly concerned about them and their endangered lifestyles, so have another one of my bloody butterbeers when you're up for it and shut the feck up for a half-hour, _Robert;_ there's a good bloke."

"Ah! Er…alright," Rob mumbled, and slouched into the uncomfortable armchair. "Sure, mate."

Harry clicked on his Muggle telly without waiting to hear the reply, Accio'd his stashed-away packet of Tesco-brand cheese crisps for good measure, and then stubbornly wouldn't say another word to Rob for the rest of the afternoon, no matter how much 'patience' Rob expended.

**o0o**

"Hermione, he's not budging—and he bloody hates me now!"

Ron threw his hands up in the air. It was his turn to pace the kitchen. "Hates me, I say! Look, I'm not about to risk losing my best friend over this, see? It's not worth it. He's getting better all his own and you'd see that too, if you'd get your nose out of your stupid books for once, Hermione! He'll remember everything on his own time, love, and it's not going to happen any sooner than when it happens, no matter what we do!"

Hermione sighed heavily, and tiredly laid down her biro on her notebook. She nearly laid her weary head down, as well, she was that exhausted.

She was surrounded with piles of Dark Arts texts from the Auror's Library; typed reports of Harry's test results from the St. Mungo's Lab, bits of testimony from the officers who'd collected Harry from Muggle Battersea and the transcripts of the cell messages she and Ron had collected from their cell phone's memory chips over the last few days. There'd been a few very early ones she'd simply deleted, under the erroneous impression they were sent by some misguided pranker; Ron, too, had done the same, so they didn't have them all, by any means. The texts remained a tantalizing mystery, hinting at a secondary subplot that might or might not have much to do with Harry's curse.

To be perfectly honest, Hermione admitted, they didn't have many solid facts to work with and none of the pieces they did possess fit together in any sort of logical order. Further, the latest reports stated the traces of ejaculate the Healers had sampled from Harry's denims had _not_ matched up with any known criminal's, Death Eater or no. He'd certainly not been raped on June 5th, their best mate, though it was evident he'd been shagging. Shagging lots! Shagging, er, vigorously!

Hermione blushed faintly at the thought.

Inquiries at the clubs Harry frequented, Muggle and Wizard, hadn't panned out; no one reported seeing him that night; no one had come forward with any further information upon discreet inquiry via the Ministry's connections to the Muggle police. And between the Aurors and herself, a whole arsenal of spells had been showered on an increasingly disgruntled Harry, on the personal effects he'd carried or worn that evening and even on the dried-up 'leavings', as Ron termed them. They'd even gone so far as to attempt a Point Me on the disgusting little vial that contained it, only to watch in frustration when the damned thing simply spun in place in mid-air, its rotation wobbly and uncertain.

"Look, I know that, Ron; I do, but…" Hermione heaved a frustrated groan and idly shot red-and-gold bubbles from her wand simply as a way to take her mind off her troubles, filling the small kitchen with a festive Gryffindor light-show in miniature as a result.

"Really, I do _know_. But I can't just give up now, even if perhaps I should. It's not right."

"Hermione…" Ron began, and then stopped, not knowing quite where to go next.

They were at an utter standstill, the both of them, and likely the whole Ministry, too. Harry's Muggle cell was his personally and he'd spelled it under a mobile Unplottable, so its current whereabouts couldn't be traced. Since he was the most powerful Wizard living at this point, his castings were no joking matter. Thus, whoever was holding his cell hostage couldn't be located either, at least not covertly, and that was the crux of the problem. The text messenger was an utter mystery and, potentially, a quite dangerous one. If an Auror (say, Ron Weasley) returned the stalker's calls on Harry's behalf, he'd risk losing any possibility of apprehending the criminal unawares, should the chap also be the one responsible for casting the Curse on Harry. If Hermione were the one to call, the mysterious stalker chap might just dump Harry's cell in the Thames out of sheer temper, and then Harry would be out a phone and likely be mad as a hornet when he at last remembered…because this could still simply be one of Harry's more ill-behaved one night stands. Plus (though they blushed to admit it, even to themselves) they simply hadn't thought of simply calling back till it was far too late to pass it off as casual. Calling blindly now would certainly make matters worse.

No, Harry's cell phone had to be retrieved without the text stalker realizing Harry was afflicted with his 'little problem'. No one could be allowed to know that the Ministry's Head Auror had a very tenuous and somewhat barmy grip on his prior memories, or the breach in national security would simply escalate beyond repair.

"I _can't_," Hermione repeated and pinched at her rumpled forehead with thumb and forefinger, wand still a'bubble. There was a wealth of worry and vexation in those two little words.

"Yeah," Ron agreed sadly, sticking his hand out and laying over hers in a comforting fashion, batting iridescent globes aside with the other. It was becoming difficult to see the kitchen table. Tiny 'pops' resounded. "I know, but…"

There were so many of their questions left unanswered. Was Harry in terrible danger from this sexed-up, grumpy weirdo texting him? Or had he been cursed with amnesia simply because of his position as Head Auror? Or was it his Saviour status that was the problem and someone carried an old grudge left over from the war?

Was it political or personal? Did the fellow he'd met up with on June 5th hate him or adore him and was Harry actually even acquainted with the man personally, despite his momentary amnesia, and had just not gotten round to introducing him to his best mates—or could it all be mere silly coincidence? Harry might be simply forgetful, especially as evidence said he'd been imbibing well above his normal quota, and perhaps, as a result, this text-stalking bloke was only a one-off that had gotten a bit out of hand? Or he could've been nursing a great romance along secretively (that would be just like him) and had become unaccountable but terribly shy about letting his ersatz family in on the secret.

Ron grinned at the thought; it wasn't as though Harry couldn't keep his mouth shut when he wanted to.

So…how interconnected were the two events in the first place—the amnesia curse and Harry's cell phone?

Hermione, meanwhile, was sorting through what she _did_ know, in hopes of finding a clue she'd missed the first thousand sorts.

People did that all the time: stalking Harry, for one reason or another, and often it was but love-struck fools who mistook a passing shag with him for real affection. Harry had his needs like any other Wizard, true enough, and Hermione certainly wasn't questioning that. But the texts had left her with the vivid impression the sender expected Harry to know precisely who he was—and to recall the entire night of June 5th in lurid, fleshy detail. And if that was indeed the case, and the Curse was unrelated, and Harry had knowledge buried deep in his muddled head they just couldn't dig up through conventional methods (which was also likely, as Harry had proved time and again his Snape-monitored post-war Occulomancy lessons were resistant even to Mad-Eye's best efforts), then logically the only course open to his mates and the Ministry was to wait patiently for events to devolve themselves.

Just as her boyfriend was timidly suggesting.

"I won't," Hermione repeated, a surge of her customary fighting spirit returning as the tiny House-coloured bubbles landed gently all about them, building up in air castles. She lifted her chin and squeezed Ron's hand in real appreciation nonetheless, sending another volley of bubbles up with the other. She could see his point; she could appreciate her own frustration—but!

But—but, no matter how often she tried to convince herself to leave things well enough alone (write off the texts as extraneous and allow the Curse to heal itself, as the Healers said it would), Hermione just couldn't do it. It was not in her nature. It was _Harry_.

"Still, I don't know what I can _do_, Ron," she whinged, feeling that reoccurring sense of defeat stomping hard in her rediscovered optimism. She looked up at her boyfriend, blinking back tears, and found him regarding her soberly.

They just wanted Harry back, Hermione thought; was that so hard to understand?

"I don't, Ron. Not anymore—and I was so certain I could fix this mess up properly!"

"Yeah," Ron shook his head, equally at a loss. "It's lousy luck, Hermione, it is, but I don't see what else we can do but wait. You know, he's taken to calling me _Robert_ now? It makes me want to sick up. I honestly don't think I can face going back to Grimmauld for a few days—tomorrow's your turn, alright?"

Hermione heaved a huge sigh and buried her achy head in her pillowed arms, finally remembering to spell off the burgeoning House bubbles as she did so.

"Fine," she agreed. "'Harmony's' on it, Ron. I'll go. But you owe me a nice dinner out tomorrow night, got it?"

"Yes, dear."

**o0o**

**Harry's Healing Diary: Thursday p.m. Rain, rain, rain. More sodding rain. England bloody sucks for decent weather. Why the feck do I live here? Did someone force me? **

**o0o**

Message to Granger's cell phone, 2:53 p.m., Caller ID 'Harry Potter', exactly as per usual: _You tell Potty I'm going to whip his sorry arse into gear, Granger! With that same riding crop he liked so much the other evening! I'm weary of waiting about for him to notice me. I'm sick of hoping he's learnt the barest rudiments of basic courtesy from that highfalutin Ministry position of his. IMHO, he's no more than an arsewipe of the first degree, UR pal Potter. A tosser! A cocksucker! A pricktease! But, Granger. One thing. Do let him know that if he swallows my cum again with same fervour he showed me on my birthday, I might just forgive him yet. Maybe. Tell him—no, ORDER him to ring me up at once—no more excuses! Please, Granger. I'm asking nicely._

Message to Dean Thomas's newly defunct and recently replaced cell number, 3 p.m., Caller ID blocked: _Thomas._ _This is an old school fellow of yours acquaintance. Would you kindly ask Potter to ring back his own personal cell number? It's crucial that he do so._

**o0o**

Voice message to Pansy Parkinson's exceptionally well-equipped Muggle cell phone: "_Pans, I'm working my way through all the others in his Contacts one by one, just as you've said I should. I'm even polite to them, though Salazar knows the wankers don't deserve it. But what if they won't pass on to HP that I'm trying to reach him? Most of the gits dislike me—or worse. Granger and Weaselbee _definitely _hate me! I don't where he lives now and I'll be hanged if I'll go begging to the Ministry in search of him. Likely _they_ wouldn't tell me how to reach him, either. Weasel'll probably arrest me for simply Apparating there, right off the bat! It'd be just my rotten luck, Pans. I can't stand this waiting, you realize; not any more. I hate my sodding life, Pans, all of it. What if he didn't mean it? Any of it?"_

**o0o**

Harry tried; honestly, he did. But every time his well-meaning 'best mates' pushed him to recall June 5th , he seemed to lose a little more of that weirdly champagne feeling he felt, the one directly hardwired to that night. And his recollected emotion was an utterly brilliant one, no matter how vague; one he'd sorely regret losing.

No, the events of June 5th were still a hazy, amorphous puzzle, still hidden in impenetrable mists. He'd been…something that approached 'happy', he knew. Perhaps that was the best way to describe it: happy. Or 'satisfied', instead, in a manner he'd never been before. He couldn't wrap proper words around it, quite, not even internally. It wasn't an emotion he recognized easily nor had ever much truck with, before. And every time Rob and Harmony pestered him, or the Ministry set more Aurors after him, questioning, or that odd Moody bloke with the frightening visual impediment tried to hack his grey cells on the sly, that vague feeling Harry treasured seemed to diminish and grow dim, as if it were innately _wrong _in some way Harry couldn't grasp—as if he _shouldn't_ be feeling it.

His Healer had reluctantly revealed all the relevant details when Harry questioned him discreetly during one of his follow-up visits: he'd been drunk as a ferret when he'd been brought in, his blood-alcohol levels abnormally high for his body-weight. It appeared , too, from all the physical evidence, that he'd been engaged in vigorous sexual activity, but with whom, the Healer didn't know, nor could tell him. No one knew, not even Harry. Or maybe they—as in dear old 'Rob' and 'Harmony'—did know more than they were telling, but Harry hadn't quite managed to successfully guilt either of them into revealing all of why they went about with those lemon-sucking looks on their faces.

He did have a miniscule stockpile of information he'd gleaned on his own, though, to work with, and he was Head Auror, or so they told him. Perhaps he could sort it out by himself?

First off, he'd mislaid his Muggle cell phone and his absolute favorite Levi's jacket, as well as his underwear. Had ended up in Battersea wearing only trousers, shirt and shoes, a fact Harmony still exclaimed over with a certain degree of shock. Had, however, managed to retain his all-important wand and his spectacles, along with his wallet full of notes and Muggle plastic, so he'd not been mugged nor assaulted in the usual Muggle way. The St. Mungo's Healer in charge of him (_not_ 'Saint Mangoes', though Harry thought he truly preferred thinking of the sterile white halls of that dreaded place that way;-the tropical feel of the newer name amused him) had assured him, when he'd finally thought to ask, that the shagging he'd been engaged in appeared to have been entirely consensual. Not rape, then. At least, not to _him_.

But his unnamed partner was _not _someone Harry knew or recalled easily, either. Whoever it was (and Hermione had said she thought it was a man), Harry would've thought he'd have shown his face, especially if he, Harry, was being rogered regularly as part of a real, live _relationship_. It only stood to reason the chap should be willing to be accounted for, Harry concluded, as most of the sexual partners he'd had before (now that he could recall at least a few of them) had been more than proud to have been shagged by the 'great Harry Potter, War Hero'. But none of those relationships had ever lasted long enough to amount to much, and Harry shied away from considering that aspect of his personality too deeply.

Perhaps he was the shallow sort, who couldn't settle. Could be there was something about him that was unattractive, despite the Hero label, even if they'd all told him repeatedly he was fabulous in the sack. Of course they would say such rubbish—he was a fucking Hero, wasn't he? Must keep the Saviour's ego happy, at all costs.

Curiously, though, Harry couldn't recall ever being buggered up the arse by any of the chaps he'd fancied, not even Ernie or Charlie, the two he could now remember really gagging for—and bedding. He must not have wanted his relationships with them to sort out themselves out that way, Harry supposed, in a rare moment of true introspection. The position of bottom left him feeling far too vulnerable, Harry decided firmly, and he had to suppress an instinctive shiver at the very idea of his June 5th self willingly allowing it. But this unknown man had fucked him right up the bum several times, according to the medical history, and there'd been no sign of any struggle of any kind on his part. He must've have _wanted _it, then.

Well. _That_ was interesting.

Further, and returning to his original point, Harry truly didn't believe he'd ever have managed to maintain any sort of ongoing, serious romantic relationship without Ron and Hermione knowing every single detail. They seemed to be in the know about pretty well everything that'd ever happened in Harry's life, private or not. Or else the _Prophet _did, since apparently he was headline news a great deal too often for his personal comfort levels.

But not this time. His amnesia was strictly Auror business and, as such, the press had been gagged at the order of Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt himself. Not a single, solitary word of Harry's unfortunate condition had been breathed to the general public and all who came into contact with him had been warned strongly to be extra-careful to keep it that way. It would be a disaster of unimaginable proportions if the Head Auror—Hero Harry Potter!—was revealed to be nothing but a jumbled mass of half-memories and partial bits-and-pieces of his illustrious past. The public would be frantic, thinking he couldn't protect them properly.

Because of that, he'd been allowed very little contact with other Wizards and Witches since he left St. Mango's, and only well-vetted intimates were allowed to enter his immediate sphere, which effectually came down to almost no one, really. Harry, apparently, didn't have that many mates, and certainly not a lover. Just 'Rob' and 'Harmony', mostly, on alternating days. Harry loved them, he did, but it made for a very lonely time, Harry reckoned, though likely he'd had worse. He seemed to recall having had far worse in his life, sadly.

Still, Harry supposed matters were improving, overall. He recognized Teddy and Aunt Andy on sight; could recall every detail of the majority of his Auror training and his rapid promotions within the ranks. He knew precisely who Ronald Weasley was, from the first chocolate frog card on the train ride to Hogwarts to the last conversation they'd had about a bothersome case late in the afternoon of June 5th, and likewise Hermione Granger, she of the extraordinary brainbox, though he wasn't planning on admitting to his knowledge of them any sooner than he had to. It was a total gas for Harry, yanking _Rob's_ chain, and then Hermione made the best faces when Harry oh-so-innocently referred to her as _Harmony_. Worth every hour he'd spent unwillingly being tormented by their anxious sideways glances and Harmony's incessant wand-swishing and horribly long and complicated cursebreaking incantations. Not that her manic attempts to heal him more quickly had actually been effective in any way, as they certainly hadn't. Indeed, most of the counterspells she and the Auror staff used gave Harry the headache or left him feeling vaguely ill.

Potions were of no help, either, and no less an authority than the reclusive Professor Snape himself had said so, and then promptly shrugged off the pesky matter of Potter's Little Problem as of no utterly interest to him. Oh, Harry gratefully downed the ones Snape grudgingly Owled over for his blinding migraines (and had even recalled how to brew up a few of the more intricate, long-lasting ones in the privacy of his recently rediscovered basement lab at Grimmauld Place) but none of them served to bring his missing night back in full, nor did they ever magically reveal the identity of his assailant—er, _lover_.

The spell that had been cast on him, whatever it was, really was finally wearing off on its own, Harry knew. The Healer had repeatedly assured him it would do so and that was absolutely no need to be overly anxious. It was some arcane sort of ancient Blood Magic Charm but not a particularly nasty one, and likely cast in error by some small-time criminal who'd leanings toward the Dark Arts, but no true intimacy with it. Harry hadn't really been paying attention to all the details when the Healer had droned on about it _ad nauseum_—that was his Auror's job, paying attention to the details. He employed able Wizards and Witchs to solve just these sorts of problems, and if that information were important, Harry was sure they'd always taken note. And, too, it shouldn't be long now before the huge gaps Harry still boasted in his memory resolved themselves naturally and he'd remember everything that had ever happened to him all by his lonesome. Harry looked forward to that moment of revelation with eagerness.

He'd be whole again, finally…or would he?

**o0o**

**Saturday a.m. Weather clear and fine; a brilliantly lovely day forecasted and the first in absolute ages. They're finally planning to allow me out of my cage here at Grimmauld for a bit and set me loose on the Wizarding world at last. We're all off to Diagon Alley at lunchtime in hopes it'll jog my memory permanently. Hope 'Rob' and 'Harmony' will let me into Fortesque's and the Quidditch supply shop unaccompanied—I'm gagging for a decent rum-papaya ice cream and there's a new racing broom from AreoItalia advertized on the WWW. Be nice to see people again—I've missed them, being stuck here indefinitely.** **It's much like my cupboard, only larger and with more spiders—and Doxies.**

**o0o**

Message on Hermione Granger's cell phone, received approximately 2 a.m., Caller ID 'Harry Potter': _Granger, plz let Harry see this. Plz don't delete it. Harry, PLZ PLZ PLZ ring me back, any time, soon, NOW. Owl me, call me, come see me at work/home. I don't know what I did, exactly, to offend U, but I'll make it up to U, trust me. I know I likely came on too damned strong that night; I'm sorry. I just. I just __**really **__wanted U. I've __**always**__ wanted U. Plz don't let that be the only time for us. PLZ, I'm serious about this. And U said U meant it, Harry. I believed U._ _Don't fuck with me now, alright? _

Message received on Neville Longbottom's ancient, outmoded Muggle cell phone, the one he never remembered to charge or carry, Caller ID 'Draco Malfoy': _Longbottom, do you recall all that intensive coaching I did to get you through Charms in 7__th__ Year? Would you kindly return the favour? Tell Potter to get in touch with me immediately. I'd appreciate it. Regards, Draco Malfoy._

Second message on Hermione Granger's _and _Ron Weasley's Muggle cell phones, with JPEG attachments, at approximately 1 p.m., Greenwich; from Caller ID 'Harry Potter': _Here they are: undeniable proof , if U gits still don't believe me. Feast UR eyes, Trio, on Potter's indubitable interest in URS truly. Can't argue __**that**__, can U? Potter, ring me! Ring me NOW, whilst UR examining what I did to U, U wanker!_ _See those love-bites on UR neck? All MINE!_

Third message received on Granger's cell phone, 11 p.m., Caller ID 'Harry Potter': _Potter, just because I have them doesn't mean I'm going to use them. I thought we agreed we'd both made mistakes. I'm not so stupid as to deliberately hurt you, especially now. You do realize too, don't you, that if I drown myself in much more Firewhiskey, I'll be flammable? I miss you so much—all the fucking time now. Ring me, Harry._

Fourth message on Granger's cell phone, 11:37 p.m., Caller ID 'Harry Potter': _Granger, really, __**what**__ is UR damage? I know U want to protect him, but I'm not out to harm a hair on his messy head. I care for him, sod it! Stop bloody getting in the way, will U? Show him my texts—I've certainly sent enough of them now, haven't I? Sincerely, Ticked Off in Belgravia_

**o0o**

**Saturday a.m. A fine, calm day. Diagon was tops, ace, brilliant and all that. Great place to visit; very exciting. Was re-introduced to tonnes of people I know—and recalled most of them. I think I've dated Luna Lovegood before; she's really **_**very **_**attractive. Perhaps she's the one from that night? Except for being a female, but…well, she's an odd duck. Who knows what she might get up to in the bedroom? I tried to inquire, but she—well, she didn't answer, exactly. Went on and on about cranes—the birds, that is—and origami, and texting. Most confusing—I seem to recall being confused often by Luna. And there was an awful lot of fowl language in that particular conversation. **

**Speaking of, Hermione finally showed me a few of the texts she's been receiving on her phone from this stalker chap. I read them through and it seems definitely to be a bloke involved and we certainly shagged, but I don't recall anyone specific yet. I must say, June 5****th**** must have been one hell of a night for me, though, if there's twelve different photos of me cuffed bare-arsed to the git's headboard! How incredibly embarrassing! I look bloody debauched! Like a frigging two-bit slag or something—and the expression on my face—Merlin! I could hardly look Hermione in the eye after—had to go to the loo at the Leaky for a bit and calm down. As in, **_**wank**_**. **

**Luckily, nothing in the **_**Prophet**_** yet about any scandal involving me. Hermione's been checking regularly, and Kingsley's got a gag order on any articles or images that include me, media-wide. That'll stay in place for the duration, till we all sort out what's happened and who's responsible. **

**It's a matter of national security and I see that, I suppose, though it's really lousy luck, having your mates and subordinates receive images of you looking like you're going to come, or just did come and want to do it again, and then knowing, too, that my own fellow Aurors have analyzed them, and are probably speculating amongst themselves about my kinks. I didn't even know I had kinks! Handcuffs! Whipped cream! Feathers! It's very frightening, really. I don't ever recall having this weird sense of violation before, not even with Voldemort. It's as if they've poked into a hidden room I have in my head, and sorted through the furniture there, and are now acting as though it's all rubbish simply because it won't admit who sat on it or used it, or anything. **

**There's the chap's hands, too, in those horrible photos. On my naked thighs, my chin, my arse, my back. All over me, and when I look at them, moving so lightly across my skin for that short time and then gripping at me, hard enough to leave bruises but not, there's the strangest sensation in my gut, as if I've lost something so precious there's literally no words in me to describe it. They're nice hands, too. Clean and with the nails neatly trimmed and a bit glossy; one could almost say polished. A gentleman's hands. They seem so eager to touch me, so perhaps he really did fancy me enough to stalk me. **_**Does fancy me**_**, more like, if he's still sending these ridiculous texts. **

**You know, at least I **_**am **_**proficient**** at Occulomancy, now. There's still bits no one knows in my head, not even me. I'm must say I'm glad about that. Thanks, Snape, you great greasy git. I'd send you chocolates but you'd likely refuse them. **

**I'll probably return to my Auror post in another week or so, what with the way things are improving. This house of mine is terribly depressing and now I remember exactly why—wish I didn't. I may have to move out altogether eventually, it's so horrid. Needs a woman's touch, Ginny (she's that 'other' woman in my mantel collection: the really flaming ginger one, 'Rob's' sister) says, and she also advises me she knows any number of Witches who'd be pleased as punch to help me fix it up. **

**Don't want that. Don't want that at all. Don't know **_**what**_** I want. Maybe that mysterious chap I shagged—who shagged me. Seems a real prat, though, and rather unstable mentally, what with first threatening and then almost outright begging to see me, and then not including his name or his cell number at all! (Not to mention the bloody blackmail pictures!) And **_**my**_** cell's unlisted, and I must've spelled it Unplottable or something, since **_**I **_**can't even find it when I send a Point Me. Even Hermione can't track it with her Muggle GPS, and she's a crack Cursebreaker as well as the civilized world's biggest brain bank, so I truly can't discover who's got it or really even ring it up, as this chap so clearly wants me to. I erased that bit from its innards and that damned Harmony won't tell me my own number, can you believe it? Says she doesn't want me to risk it. So, I'm a bit stuck at the moment. Can't be arsed to remember my own cell number, can I? I remember saying that to someone, recently; likely to Ron. I hardly ever use the bloody thing, you know, not from what I can remember **_**now**_**, and I really don't even know why I had it on me that night. That's what I've told them all, over and over again, but Hermione gets all huffy and then looks shirty at me sideways, like she doesn't believe me, really. And Ron sighs. I hate it when he does that.**

**I love Hermione, I do, but I wish she'd lay off on quizzing me for a bit. It might come back if I just let it happen naturally. **

**Oh! There was a new message on her cell this morning, from mine, or at least I'm assuming it's mine as it comes up in the ID 'Harry Potter': **_**''One is the loneliest number', Potter. If I can't see U one way, I'll see U another. Love, XOXO and undying hatred, from UR throwaway fuck, arsehole.'**_

**My **_**throwaway fuck's**_** cell is also likely ID blocked, I'm sure, and probably just as bollixed up as mine with shield spells and Unplottables. The man's a fecking Wizard, no doubt about it. Has to be! **_**And**_** a curmudgeon! And he doesn't text me from his, in any event; just uses mine. Stupid prick—mustn't have thought ahead at all! I mean, what if something unexpected happened and I couldn't get back to him in a timely fashion? Why doesn't this prat think of workable alternatives for getting in touch instead of just berating me over and over for being a heartless dickweed? I mean, do send me an Owl or something! It's not that difficult, you know? Hero of the Wizarding World here—practically public property. Anyone can fucking well reach out and touch me, if they really wanted it. **

**What an utter berk **_**he**_** is. No common sense whatsoever. **

**Fuck, no more of this Diary shite. Not tonight. I'm sick of 'jotting down whatever I feel'—it's too much like bloody post-trauma stress therapy for my tastes, sorry. Going off flying on my brilliant new broom now, Diary; rack up some quality airtime. Do fuck off now and have a nice day. Ta, Harry.**

**o0o**

TBC…

BTW, this is complete. You may read it in entirety at hd_smoochfest on LiveJournal any time! Don't wait about for my slow arse if you don't want to; I'm just tidying it up a bit as I go.


	4. Chapter 5 Draco is Frustrated

HD 'Charming' Chapter 5

**0o0**

Message to Pansy Parkinson's cell voicemail, 10:45 a.m., Sunday, Caller ID 'Draco Malfoy': _I'm a bloody stalker now, Pans, or I was, yesterday. Takes me back, watching him from a distance. The ginger minger's hanging on his arm in Diagon all the while as if she sodding owns it and he's happy as a clam in a mudhole, window shopping and eating ice creams, and I wish to Salazar I'd died back then at Hogwarts, when he nearly murdered me from sheer idiot temper in Myrtle's lav. And I hate my job, too. The _Prophet _won't accept any news items on him; I can't forward my blackmailing images as I'd threatened. They won't print them, even if I do. Bloody lock-down of the press, that. Stupid Potter. Not that I ever would, really. He'd never forgive me. Come have brunch with me, darling, on my expense account. Cheer me up, or at least distract me with your own hideous self-absorption. Bring along the girls and your social calendar and all your store of gossip as well. I've to come up with a 'Goings On' column by Monday night anyway. _

**0o0**

**Monday, p.m. Still nice out. I've added a rose border and some more perennials to the garden; Hermione's showed me the spells for enlarging the beds and a QuikGro Charm that's super. I've a shed chock full of Quidditch supplies, I've discovered; all gifts from the manufacturers. Found the remains of my Firebolt, poor thing, languishing in amongst the way faster, newer models. I still remember Malfoy chasing after me in Quidditch. Good old days, what? Wonder how that gasper is doing? I know they've still Galleons aplenty and he's in the **_**Prophet **_**Society Pages**__**all the time**_**,**_** shaking hands with celebs and donating up a storm, but I haven't laid actual eyes on him in eons, at least not to talk to. More's the pity—I'd like to wind him up a bit, the bratty berk. Bet he's still the 'same old same old' git as always. It really **_**is**_** a pity, Diary, come to think on it. He's got such a damn fine arse on him—or did. His hair was fairly alright, too.** **Nothing to gag over, but still…not too bad**. **Fanciable.**

**0o0**

"Harry, you've another. See?"

"Hmm. '_Every rock and every stone. Every riverine flow wending. I'll follow you till my life is spent, and through Death, ever after, unending_.' But U don't hear poetry nor prose, U prick; UR as deaf as a sodding post and still as thick. Get a clue, Potter. At least call UR own cell phone, U arse, if U can't be bothered to ring me directly. Just so I can settle this properly.'

Harry read the text aloud softly, his voice tentative at first, and then mocking as the words began to irk him. He didn't appreciate being jabbed at by some stranger he'd the unfortunate luck to shag in passing.

Though, really—this was _not_ a stranger. This was more and more apparent with every text he'd read. This was someone who'd absolutely no trouble whatsoever with taking him to task for the slightest offense—perceived and real. A real wanker.

Harry scowled at Hermione's phone and shoved it back at her.

"It's…rather sweet, Harry, actually, in a weird way," she offered up, after a tense minute, eyeing him warily over their teacups. Harry could still be an angry SOB at times, at least according to Hermione's experience, and more so now that he remembered his job. "The first bit, at least….Harry, do you think this person might truly, er, _love_ you?"

Harry shook his head instantly, emphatically 'no!' _That_ he couldn't imagine at all! There'd been no one who'd ever loved him like that—even Ginny had been more his adored little sister than his girlfriend, teenage angst and war-torn romance aside, and everyone else had just been about shagging, in the end. Harry hadn't ever experienced what Ron and Hermione took for granted. Likely never would, at this rate.

"Um, no…no, I don't know. I mean, 's'not likely, really." He swallowed down the huge lump in his throat that was sticking. Stupid pipedreams. He was an adult now, and he knew all too well the way things worked in the real world.

"I mean, how couldhe love me, Hermione? How would it even be possible? I don't recall dating anyone like that—so intense—and _you _don't, either, which is more to the point, right? Wouldn't you and Ron _know_? You always do, somehow. At least, about me."

Hermione shook her head, neatly coiffed these days, and with that 'bushy' hair smoothed and pulled back from her face in chignon to reveal her sparkling eyes and wide smile. Harry still had vivid flashbacks at times, out of nowhere—chilling ones, featuring his best friends years younger and haggard, worn, and bloody—and this confident vision of young womanhood who sat across the café table from him was so much more preferable. Whatever opportunities he'd lost to Voldemort, at least his best mates still had life and love before them.

"No, not necessarily, Harry. You don't tell us every little tidbit, you know. Never have—secretive prat!" She whapped him on the head with a copy of the _Quibbler_, grinning. "And if you'd pulled a one-off and then forgot about it, we'd not likely know unless the fellow turned up later, raising a fuss. And he's _not, _really; not in person, at least, Harry. Just these infernal messages, day after day. But think; it could be so much worse. Remember that Anthony Goldstein and that full page advert he placed in the _Quibbler_? _That _was a bit over the top!"

Harry nodded, flushing, and mumbled his agreement. The public declaration of Tony's crush on him had been awful; poor chap, to be so smitten and for no reason. Wasn't as if Harry had ever actually cared for him in return. Hadn't been able, really. Something always held him back.

A companionable silence fell and they each went back to what they'd been doing before—Hermione working her crossword and Harry Muggle-watching—tillHarry cocked his head, closing his eyes, and mulled over the cryptic store of words and symbols saved to the guts of Hermione's cell, his Auror instincts murmuring faintly in the very back of his mind. There was something just so very familiar…so very irksome…so very _what_?

"I wonder if it means anything, this?" he pondered aloud a bit later, his cup drained dry, his scone in crumbles. "The sucky attempts at poetry and the insults. Did you notice? He does that every time, the bloody berk—insults me. I wonder if he's not telling me exactly who he is and I've just not caught on."

"I can research the quote, if you like," Hermione offered, smiling happily. She was so much more relaxed now that Harry had nearly everything in his head back in proper order. Ron, too. Harry was glad it'd worked out alright, all 'round. Except for this one thing, of course. "Shouldn't be that difficult, even if the author's Muggle. Shall I, then? Perhaps it'll be a lead for us, Harry. We'll kick up who he is by cross-reference."

Harry nodded his thanks and frowned again, staring off into the distance. 'Get a clue, Potter!' The phrase teased him, tickling emotions out of him he hadn't felt for absolute ages: anger, suspicion, frustration—desire.

Everything else—everything else in his life was fully returned and restored, clear a sodding bell, but for this one thing. This bloke. This wanker. And Harry hadn't a clue as why that was.

"Do—and let me know if you find it, Hermione, if you would. I rather think this git's serious about hunting me down, and I'm likely going to have to cope with him in person eventually, if only to get my cell back. Best to be forearmed."

**0o0**

**Tuesday, a.m. Painting. I've three rooms on the first floor finished; the basement, the kitchen and scads of new furniture to boot. Luna's a whiz at redecorating, turns out, and all the shops and firms deliver; even the Muggle, if you spend enough. Used a crowbar to pry that vicious bitch off the hallway wall and burnt her, frame and all, in the back garden with a well-placed Incendio and a full litre of petrol. That felt brilliant—**_**my**_** house is a different place altogether, with her gone.**

**0o0**

Message on Granger's cell phone, 12 noon, Caller ID 'Harry Potter': _Right. I may as well return this misbegotten device of URS, the one that never rings me back, though it's my only link to U, Scarhead. I've nothing else left, do I? Been ages now since my birthday, and bloody nothing. Not a sodding word. But—find me first, Potter; there's a good chap. Force me to 'give it here', why don't you? And _do_ pay attention, Foureyes: here's more of my poetry for you, freshly scribbled: 'On the dark, there is bright. In the room, there is light. You flay me, and nearly slay me, and leave me wide open. But I'm always the bloody foolish fool, and always hoping'. There. Yet another clue to who's been chasing after you, Mr. Auror Wallah, for your delectation, though you obviously couldn't give a flying fuck who I am or what you said to me. But perhaps it'll spark __**UR**__ interest, Granger, and you'll do a little of UR 'research' and find me out. I'm not exactly in hiding here, am I? And yet you can't be arsed to even bother, can you, Potty? I must be just one faceless fuck amongst a thousand, right? So many fools chasing after the great Hero-man and I'm relegated to be merely another in the endless lineup. A pox on you, Scarhead, for turning ME into a nonentity! Still, though my off-the-cuff verse sucks limp dick and likely doesn't impress U, I've come to the final and depressing conclusion you're simply not worth the bloody brainpower it takes to come up with the good shite. Not so far, that is, and, I assure U, I can pen sonnets with the very best of them. Reel off limericks and puns and plain verse on a whim—as you bloody well __**know**__, Harry, since we actually talked that night, along with the fucking. Not just shagged, TALKED! Conversed. Shared, if you want to be girly about it. But not again; never again, not for you, you git; never, ever again! You're just not worth my trouble, you prick. Not worth the effort. But _do_ know that I am retaining your Muggle jacket, now I've found it (why the back of the broom closet and not the coat rack, Potter? And your skivvies—they were in with my winter robes! What were you thinking?) Souvenirs, what? Maybe I'll auction them off on that Muggle place, REBAY, if ever I'm that desp—__**END TEXT OUT OF CHARACTER SPACE ERROR**__._

**0o0**

Message on Seamus Finnegan's cell phone, currently out-of-battery and located in his sock drawer at his Mum's house, received 2:46 p.m., Caller ID 'Harry Potter'. Seamus himself was posted in the States for six months, on travelling assignment for the _Quibbler_, tracking down tales of the mysterious Big Foot for a feature article: _Potter's mislaid his thrice-cursed Muggle communication device. On the off chance you run into him, pass along the message to ring through to his own number. I've come across it lying about and wish to return it to him as soon as possible, as it's no earthly use to me. He'll know who has it, I'd imagine. Sincerely, A Former Hogwarts Schoolmate (__not__ Potter!)_

**0o0**

"You'll need to do rather better, Draco. This shite's garbage. It's _yours_, for one thing, and it's not particularly clever, for another. I thought you said you'd dazzled him, finally."

"Shut up, Zabini."

"Well, at least use someone else's poetry. Someone _better_. There's Lockhart's Lyrical Love Poems at Flourish & Blotts or there's plenty of Muggles to choose from: Shakespeare, for one. John Donne, for another. Emily Whatsit."

Blaise topped up their tumblers with Glenfidditch and watched his old dormmate loll about on his prized white-leather sectional couch: pale skin, icy hair, silky and long down his back, caught in a loose, thick braid, a fretful pout coming and going across those well-shaped, highly snoggable lips. All that princely beauty was highlighted by the black-on-black Draco wore with such panache: silk and wool and tailored pre-Raphaelite-flowing fabric in gathers and elegant sweeps, knee-length suede lace-up boots and a diamond stickpin glittering in his loose Gucci kerchief. His Malfoy signet adorning one manicured pinkie finger, his wand tucked carelessly up one flowing sleeve. Draco Malfoy's current air of tragedy sat so gloriously well on his classically Norman features. He was a veritable prince of a man; a minor deity of a lover—as Blaise and Pansy both knew all too well. Pretty pictures, indeed—Draco Malfoy exemplified one, despite his miserable hang-dog expression.

Potter, on the other hand, _was _an absolute tit, Saviour or not, at least in Blaise Zabini's not-terribly-humble opinion. He'd left a trail of heartbroken casualties behind him, the smarmy do-gooder hero bastard, and Draco was the one most bloodied.

"Did you speak to Pans about this?" Blaise inquired casually, though he knew the answer to that. They shared everything, he and Pansy. Though she was still the slag she'd always been, and a harpy besides, she'd a heart-of-gold; rock solid, twenty-four karat, that contrary and difficult female. Pity about the nose, but they'd been discussing visiting the States, so perhaps a Wizard Surgeon in Wizarding Hollywood might…

"All the bloody time," Draco huffed, interrupting Blaise's thoughts of nose jobs and his wife's attitude towards self-enhancing surgery. "_She's_ no help. More concerned with the goings on at the Club, and her silly little daughters. Domesticity doesn't truly suit her, Blaise. Don't know why we ever thought it would."

"Er—Draco," Blaize was vaguely uncomfortable but it had to be said. "They're mine, too, you know; the girls. Don't insult them. We'll both have to hex you and that'll ruin your only marketable asset."

"What, my arse?" Draco laughed bitterly, and took a good swallow of his whiskey. "My face is hardly an asset, Zabini—not now. Can't even publish a ruddy photo in your rag with my by-line, for Merlin's sake. People are bloody idiots. I give enough fucking money away; you'd think that by now—"

"Yes, yes, I know, Draco. Do shut up this minute. 'Undesirable No. 2' and all that. _I _know, _Pans_ knows, we _all_ know. Do cease going on about it. You're hardly an anathema."

"Hardly, you say? I'd say differently, Blaise, but of course _you_ know best, what with your finger resting on the pulse of the people."

"Shut up, Malfoy," Blaise smirked. "If you'd bought the _Prophet_ as I advised you to, instead of merely working for it, you'd be in a much better position to complain. But you didn't, so stifle yourself, whinger. Or buy the _Quibbler _from Looney—we can have a blast competing for readership percentages."

"Huh, maybe," Draco muttered, his eyes lighting with a momentary predatory interest, but he applied himself to his glass instead of continuing their pointless discussion. Blaise casually picked up an article he'd been intending to read over instead of pressing. Better to let Draco stew a bit when he was stuck on the subject of that infernal Potter.

After five minutes or so of silence, Draco shifted restlessly on the sofa, resettling the pillow under his head, sipping his Scotch. Blaise stayed companionably quiet, having said his little piece to halt his best mate's persistent bad habit of talking endlessly about Harry Potter. It might be effective for all of fifteen minutes, tops, he wagered to himself silently. He'd another ten left, at most, to concentrate on editing.

More shuffling and more fidgeting, and then Malfoy's glass was almost empty. The tasseled paisley pillow hit the floor with an irritated thump.

Finally, Draco sat up and drained his glass completely, setting it on the low glass-topped coffee table before him with a tiny clink. Obviously, his extended silence had been full of useful cogitation. Equally obviously, it concerned his perennially favourite subject of discussion: Harry Potter. Draco's thoughts, Blaise knew, never strayed all that far from the Golden Boy.

"So what do I do now, Zabini?" he demanded, sullenly, apropos of not much, really. "He's done it again: ignoring me, acting as if I'm nothing—nothing! I'd thought—I'd _really _thought, this time, Blaise. It's been so long since we've actually met, face-to-face; plenty of opportunities for him to get over all that business with the war and so on, and he and the little Weasel bint have already parted ways a while back, so…" Draco swallowed hard, closing his eyes tightly for a moment. "And there he was, right there in _A'Go Go!_ _,_ standing directly before me, telling me how'd he always wanted me—wanted to shag me in that stupid fumbling way he has. _Me_, Blaise! It was so perfect—_too_ perfect."

"Are you pregnant?" Blaize cocked a questioning brow at his best mate. He rustled his article officiously and peered over the edge of it.

"What! _No_!"

"Are you bleeding? Damaged internally? Broken arms or legs? Cursed? Hexed? Otherwise physically impaired?"

"No…and what're you getting at, Blaise? I fucking hate it when you go all cryptic."

"And you're not deceased, or an Inferi, nor some creature he can't tolerate shagging, right?"

"No. Well…" Draco looked a bit doubtful at that. The lack of response to his many messages was starting to show in wear-and-tear upon his usually impressive figure. He was a tad slimmer than he'd been a month earlier and paler by a degree or two. Yet more chiseled, if possible. Even his mannerisms had been affected. He'd a nervous twitch he hadn't shown in ages, not since the Dark Lord had been the Malfoy's houseguest from Hades—not since Potter had perfected the fine art of ignoring him.

Blaise didn't like to see Draco this way, annoying Draco-habits aside, not one iota! But Potter was not only the fecking problem; he was also the solution, sod it!

"Then try again," Blaise directed firmly, bobbing his perfectly cleft chin. "Track the blighter down at his usual haunts; use that fine fit body of yours to seduce him. He fell for it once; he might do again."

Draco dropped his sleek head into his hands and stared haughtily at his oldest male friend through his parted fingers, grey eyes burning with tortured emotion.

"It wasn't my _body_ that attracted him in the first place, Zabini—it was my shining intellect. He said so—said he thought I was 'terribly clever'. Intriguing. Fit, too, of course."

Fortunately, Blaise's two adorable twin daughters burst into the room at that very moment, successfully drawing their Uncle Draco's attention from the utterly gobsmacked expression their father briefly sported. Blaise Zabini was no stranger to 'disbelief' as a general concept, but this really was _utter_!

Potter had been gagging after Draco's _mind_, of all things? That squirrely, always plotting, always insanely inventive snake-pit of preternatural sharp-edged wit and even more tangled and arcane wiles? And then had the nerve to tell him so—bloody _encourage_ him? Really—it simply couldn't get any worse than this! The Ministry's Finest Auror was an utter dork, indubitably. Draco had nowhere to go but up when it came to choosing a love-interest! That berk Longbottom would be a better catch!

Sodding _idiot _Saviour! Couldn't tell his arse from fecking hole in the ground!

**0o0**

**Wednesday a.m. Dear Fucking Stupid Healing Diary I Am Cursed With: To my best recollection, I've got most all of it back—all the minutes, hours, days and years of my eventful life prior I'd so idiotically mislaid on that one fateful night, June 5****th****,****through no fucking fault of my own. Excepting, of course, the missing hours of the actual night in question, my Muggle cell phone, and several favourite articles of my clothing, that is. In exchange, I've Hermione's transcripts of some perfectly horrid poetry, twelve rather alarming images of myself nude with various objects, and a few random threats and insults, all unsigned. Hermione's said several times she'd deleted a number of these texts, thinking they were pranks, which is extremely unlike her and the usual obsessive way she goes about things, but, then again, she's also been known to go out of her way to hide information to protect me, so she likely just isn't sharing, if she's figured it out—who this bloke is, I mean. **

**I've still enough information left to piece some sort of IdentiKit image together, at least, and there's something about his wording that really does ring a bell. It's so…familiar. Reminds me of chalk dust and Potions ingredients for some reason. And the smell of sweaty leather and fresh air. I wish I did have all of the texts, though—the ones she's showed me before and any others he's sent to people. I'm sure he must've given himself away completely at least once; his tone is as if he's truly known me for years—and maybe even dislikes me, rather, despite the parts about the really excellent shagging and missing me something fierce. But I just can't think **_**who**_**. It eludes me yet. Wretched puzzles. Love to hate 'em.**

**Well, I'm going flying with Ron instead. The day's simply stunning and there's a glorious tailwind off the Thames, so 'Rob' (I do so love the expression on his face when I call him that) says we'll have a nice lift up with the thermals off the Thames—could go aloft for bloody hours; maybe buzz the Dursleys' and drop a few dungbombs on old No. 4. **

**You know, Diary, I think I'd truly forgotten how much I loved being on a broom, since it's taken a bloody bout of amnesia to remind me! Maybe there's some good arising out of this mess, after all.**

**0o0**

Message on Hermione Granger's Muggle cell phone, received 9 a.m., Wednesday, Caller ID 'Harry Potter': _Potter, 'a truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent'. Reparations are in order, or the Hat has failed as Sorter—and that's yet another clue for you, you dense, illiterate, ill-educated prat. Come on, U KNOW who this is! Ring me! I haven't given up yet_! _Not a fucking chance!_

**0o0**

"Aunt Andromeda, Theodore," Draco said, and formally shook the sticky small hand presented him by the only surviving Lupin, his other remaining relative still living on English soil. The child was sporting magenta tresses and had managed to approximate a smaller but quite accurate version of Professor Snape's formidable beak, by the looks of it. Draco mused briefly as to where he'd ever seen images of that appendage in sufficient detail to replicate it, but then forgot all about that when Andromeda Tonks happily waved him into a nearby chair and deftly provided him with a steaming tea cup and a generous selection of choco biscuits.

"It's lovely of you to visit, my dear," Draco's aunt said, twinkling. "Teddy, enough of that nonsense," when the boy continued to shake Draco's hand after the brimming tea cup was handed over, not releasing Draco's manicured digits for anything, despite the fragile cup his Malfoy relative was ably balancing on his one trousered kneecap. "Do sit at once and leave your cousin be. You'll frighten him off if you're not polite."

"Yes, Gramma," the child replied dutifully, but Draco could tell he was more than ready to pop up again as soon as he got the chance. Young boys were like jack-in-the-boxes, as he recalled, thinking back to the days of endless deportment lessons at the stern hands of his own governess. Thank Salazar she'd given him an hour to run freely on the grounds every day or he'd have broken far more antique magical crockery than ever he had, back in the day.

"But what brings you here, Draco?" His aunt eyed him sagely. "It's not often we're graced with your company, are we, Teddy dear?"

"No, Gramma," the boy echoed, and Draco caught a faint gleam of disappointment in his currently lavender gaze. Funny—he wouldn't have thought they'd have wanted him to visit socially. It wasn't as though he'd much entertainment value to offer a six year old, being an elderly twenty-something, and he was still gingerly reacquainting himself with his own aunt, after all those years of vicious family feuding. Didn't make for casual drop-bys with no warning—or for particularly warm welcomes.

Today's visit was by no means casual, either. Pans had revealed Potter was an intimate of his aunt's and had often been seen faffing about her premises. She'd suggested that perhaps Aunt Andromeda might know where Potter resided. Draco had jumped at the notion, and made an appointment with his aunt accordingly.

It just remained to winkle the information out and then he could confront Harry directly and ask him why. Nothing else, just _why_.

"So, er, Aunt," he started, gulping, all his usual savoir faire deserting him mysteriously (my, but he _did_ feel a merest bit guilty about this, only stopping in for an address and not because he cared terribly much how they went on, his aunt and Lupin's cub). "Does young Theodore here attend school yet?"

'Young Theodore' eyed Draco scornfully from the corner of one eye and visibly pouted. His hair turned an ugly shade of olive green, perhaps in protest.

"No, dear." Draco's aunt eyed him speculatively, but not a hint of it came through in her placid voice. "Next year he'll begin day school at Whiz-Grow's Institution of Lower Learning, but until then Harry and I've agreed a tutor is the optimal solution. And he goes by 'Teddy', Draco. It seems to suit him best. Why ever do you ask?"

"Potter!" Draco was startled. He didn't think it would be anywhere near this easy to turn the subject to Harry. His aunt was an absolute gem!

"Oh, er, Potter!" he gabbled on, getting holf of himself, remembering his purpose. "Yes, um—we, uh, attended Hogwarts together, Potter and I, Aunt Andromeda. Different Houses, naturally. Yes...quite, quite different," he added, musing. "Erm—how _is _he, by the by? Haven't stumbled across him in centuries."

Aunt Andromeda opened her faded blue eyes very wide indeed, and Draco was quite suddenly struck by her marked resemblance to his Mum. He knew that Look, too—all too well. It generally boded no good for the recipient.

"Tell me, dear," she began, in her calm, quiet voice, and Draco swallowed with difficulty, afrais he'd been caught out at last and preparing to be grilled unmercifully over his secret reasons for visiting, "would you enjoy a short stroll through our garden with young Teddy here? I do believe he could benefit from the exercise."

"Brill!" shrieked 'our young Teddy', jouncing in his seat. He sprang up the next second. "Thanks, Gramma! Come on, Cousin Draco—this way!"

Draco was dragged off pell-mell, barely given the chance to safely deposit his cup-and-saucer, and shown mud frogs and dessicated flobberworms for ten minutes longer than he'd like to think was ever required by common courtesy. They then rather seriously discussed the various merits of collecting coloured pebbles as opposed to pasteboard cards with famous Wizards on; the likelihood of Aunt Andromeda allowing Teddy the spiffing training broom Uncle Harry had promised; and the plethora of comics currently available to Wizarding children, of which there'd been a sad lack when Draco was Teddy's age. He'd only picture books on Potter and grotty old fairy tales to read through when he was a pup and then his Father had taken away all those, claiming they were utter rubbish.

"Lovely!" Aunt Andromeda exclaimed cheerily when they'd both returned to her cozy sitting room, grubby and somewhat the worse for wear. "You've a nice pink in your cheeks, Draco. Do stop by more often—Teddy seems to be a good influence."

"Yes, of course," Draco accepted yet another cup of tea gratefully, hoping he'd have the chance to actually consume this one. "It would be my very great pleasure, Aunt. If I'm welcome."

"Always welcome, dear," his aunt twinkled. "Now, tell me this, if you will, dear. Why, exactly, are you so interested in our Harry?"

**0o0**

**Thursday a.m. Diary, it strikes me that I know a great deal more than I think I do. Such as this: the chap who shagged me definitely, without a single solitary doubt, **_**knows**_** me. Knows me well enough to insult me constantly but never actually go so far as to damage my feelings or my pride. Is canny enough not to let his face be captured on film. Has very nice, well-kept hands, with the indentation still visible where a ring was recently worn on his one pinkie finger, left side. Is quite pale, going again by those pics he sent of me, and likely tallish, as well, judging by the relative length of those same fingers. Has a snarky, quirky, curiously bent and nimble mindset, given all those insults of his. And what he dares call 'poetry'!**

**He's careful, too; I had no bruises or scratches on my skin from June 5****th**** and there were no signs of tearing 'round my bum hole, even if it was my first time bottoming. And clean: no diseases; the Healers checked for that immediately. He's got a quite strong sense of humour, though it's admittedly a strange one. He likes to play head games and he likes to complain. Is contrary: uses jargon and contractions and then goes on and on in those texts of his. Must take him ages to send them. Is focused and dedicated, at least to whatever it is he's got his heart set on. **

**Too, I've apparently known him from my Hogwarts years—Sorting Hat, 'Scarhead'—and he refers to Hermione's doing 'research' in one text and to Ron as the 'Weasel' in another, Ron mentioned. We didn't get along (berk, wanker, git and so on) but he wants us to, clearly. We **_**did**_**, actually, for a very brief time—long enough to get me shagged thoroughly, so I must've had some sort of change of heart about him. **

**There's only a very few people that ever dared call me 'Scarhead' to my face back in school—all Slytherins. And only a few people that were so used to disliking me they couldn't address me without insulting me every time—they despised me, in fact, the lot of them: Slytherins, again. And there is only one person in this entire world I might have 'flayed' and 'nearly slayed'. **

**Sectumsempra. **

**MALFOY!**

**Blech! **_**Ew**_**! Yes, Malfoy, if you'd believe it, Diary! I'm bloody stunned by this conclusion, but— it **_**can't**_** possibly be anyone else. There's just too many pieces that fit what's been happening to me and too many similarities racking up between him—Draco Malfoy, the git I vaguely remember from Hogwarts and the war years—and this utter twat who's been holding my cell phone hostage. **

**And, as well, there's only one ex-Death Eater I know of who really threw himself into recanting what his dad and the rest of that evil lot taught him: Malfoy. He's paid all his Reparations to the Ministry promptly since; he's donated about a million Galleons more to one good cause or the other over the years, besides, all to benefit the many victims of his ex-Dark Lord—visibly, of course, and with a great deal of publicity and handshaking, but that's Malfoy, isn't it, always leaping for the spotlight? Prat. **

**His birthday is indeed June 5****th****, according to Hermione's research of Hogwart's old enrollment records. He hates me with a terrible passion, Malfoy does, and always has. A **_**passion**_**. **

**He's a total arse, but very fit despite that, so, you know, Diary…I can see it. Shagging him, I mean. **_**Wanting to**_**. He's attractive when he bothers to smile and his arse **_**is**_** fucking glorious. I've noticed him from a distance now and again (across the Ballroom at the Ministry; on Diagon) but he's never once tried to toady up to me or even to approach me on his own. More like he actively avoids me, which is really odd. We were always confrontational. **

**And the last item, the thing that really makes me accept this idea: Luna says she received a text from him recently and it was 'very enlightening' and then she asked if I was sore, afterwards? Which tears it, rather. **

**It's **_**him**_**. It's bloody Malfoy.**

**You know, Diary, there's this ancient Muggle film called 'Sleeper' Dudders watched one time when his regularly scheduled afternoon bullying session on the playground was called for rain. It's about this git who gets stuffed into this cool-box sci-fi thingy and has a Charmed sleep for years and years on end—decades, maybe—and then, when he finally does wake up, all the things that were formerly thought to be terrible for your health in the Muggle world (smoking, chocolate, alcohol, shagging) were now considered to be beneficial. It's exactly like that now, for me. Everything I thought—Malfoy, that is—was bad for me, well….let's say I'm not so sure now. Maybe it's not. Maybe **_**he's**_** not. But I don't know—and I still can't remember.**

**Look, Diary, that's it for now. No more sodding 'feelings'. I'm knackered. My head's spinning as it is and I likely won't catch a wink tonight, not with wondering why this is happening or what Malfoy means by it—and I'm terribly afraid I may've already been 'sleeping' for far too long as it is. Just like Woodsy Albert.**

**I only wish I could remember.**

**0o0**

Message on Hermione Granger's cell phone, 1 a.m. Friday morning, Caller ID 'Harry Potter': _That's it, Scarhead: no more hiding; no more fucking around. Consider yourself forewarned: I'm going to GET YOU FOR THIS! Take U out for real. Confront you; rub your nose in the fact you wanted it, wanted ME. And maybe, just maybe, I'll manage to keep you, after. I'll fucking __**WIN**_!_ I love you, you know—yes, Granger, I do, really—and it's murder to be without you, Harry. If I can't see your stupid face at your place, Grimmauld, then it'll be you and me at the Ministry next, _mano a mano_—so watch out, Potter! I'm coming after YOU, this time!_ _Just wait for it!_

**0o0**

_TBC…_

_This fic is complete and can be found on LJ's hd_smoochfest, if you don't want to wait for my slow arse, tidying it up a bit. _

_Only the one more chapter remaining, though. _


	5. Chapter 6 Happily Ever After

**HD 'Charming' Chapter 6**

**0o0**

**Friday. Tea time. No 12 Grimmauld Place, rear garden, by the brand-new rose hedge.**

"Potter."

Harry didn't seem to hear him, so Draco edged closer to the newly bedded rose bushes—sad specimens they were, too: every one runty and with prickly baby thorns —and spoke a bit louder.

"Potter!"

Nothing happened. Draco shook his head in disgust over Potter's typically oblivious state and carefully extended his wand.

Ah! Just as he'd suspected—wards. Of course, Potter had wards. Draco, as a Wizard, and now as one of the exceptionally small group of people on the planet actually privy to Potter's Unplottable address, courtesy of his darling Aunt Andromeda, had stealthily gained access to a lurkable spot near the service door of No. 12 Grimmauld Place and was finally able to sense these formidable wards of Potter's. Whether he could breach them was another matter altogether.

Blasted Potter! Making Draco's life yet more difficult when it was hard enough already! He wasn't even certain what precisely he was going to say to the git when he finally confronted Potter face-to-face!

He'd come up with it as he went along, Draco decided; the important thing was to actually _see_ Harry. In person. Within reaching distance.

"Me faire une voie," Draco whispered, and tapped his wand thrice against the barrier. "Laissez-moi entrer!"

One thing at a time. First off, he had to find a way in.

The full force of Draco's not inconsiderable magic channeled down to a pinpoint beam, no larger than a single ray of light, and glowed brilliantly, oscillating from leaf green to cerulean blue to deepest amethyst. The ground rumbled faintly beneath his feet, causing all the Muggle houses along the Place to quiver gently on their foundations, and in the distance, he heard the sound of clay flowerpots crashing downwards from the windowsills of the home right next door. Technically, he wasn't trespassing in their yard and they'd never notice a bleeding thing due to No. 12's Fidelius, but still Draco winced. He hated the slightest indication his magic wasn't fully under his strict control.

But…he was rather understandably nervous.

Nothing happened, though. The neighbor's cat caught sight of him standing there patiently and hissed, hightailing it away from the narrow verge of overgrown weeds. And that was all. The sun shone. The breeze blew.

But no—_wait_—Potter was finally distracted from his infernal gardening; glancing about him with narrowed eyes, obviously wary. He clambered to his feet, Potter did, and strolled closer to his freshly spaded borders, peering at them suspiciously. Draco fixed his gaze upon that scarred, exceptionally memorable face, only three or four yards distant at last, and then concentrated with all his might on gaining the speccy git's notice. His father's book on Blood Magic had indicated the cure for this ancient and rather obscure Charm was simple; so ridiculously easy a mere child could manage it. Blaise had muttered in strictest confidence that it was true enough Harry had been bound by the Sleeping Beauty's constraints; his insider sources at St. Mungo's Medi-Magical Records Repository reported that the patient Head Auror Harry Potter had no memory of June 5th still, weeks later—and consequently no recollections of his brief, glorious time spent with Draco. If this were so, and the book's exceptionally infantile counterspell instructions were accurate, Draco could cure Potter easily enough _and_ gain a fighting chance to be with him again, just as he'd wanted, all this time. He only had to want it badly enough.

_Really, almost childishly simple_, Draco exulted, not at all concerned about the degree of wanting required. That, he had that covered, most certainly. And those canny old ancients must've all been chalk players. Good on them, keeping to the obvious—but he'd no time to appreciate their wisdom the moment. Bigger fish to fry, yet.

Draco took a deep, slow breath and steadied himself, spine ramrod straight, chin lifted pugnaciously.

"See me, Harry," he ordered his unwary victim in a low, charged tone, lips white and pinched with tension. His hands shook some, though he willed them fiercely not to. "_See me_! I'm right here, Potter, for Merlin's Sake!_ Look_ at me!"

_Surely, that was loud enough to snag Potter's attention_, Draco hoped, settling back on his heels from his completely unconscious full-body tilt forward.

Surely.

_Oh, gods—but nothing, nothing, nothing_! Draco despaired, when Potter merely frowned at a particularly droopy botanical specimen. Boy Wonder clearly hadn't a clue.

Nothing for it, then.

Draco cast a quick boundary Silencio after a cursory glance at the house next door, reflexively gearing himself up for a Wizard's Shout, a blast of power rarely ever used except in the direst of situations, as it drained the caster dry of reserves for an indeterminate time and left him vulnerable as a mere babe. One should never attempt it, the classic texts advised, unless one had a trusted partner for support, both physical and magical—and Draco's partner of choice was but a short (endless) step away.

With a last, desperate gulp of air and silent plea to Merlin, Draco clenched his nerve-palsied fingers into fists and released his Shout, as loud as he possibly could. This might be his very last chance at the elusive, oblivious nit and he'd be fucked if he'd throw it away by holding anything back.

"SEE ME, HARRY POTTER!" he Shouted, but the actual sound of his voice was but the tip of the iceberg. The very air particles reverberated with the force of his concentrated will. It was deathly quiet all about him, other than the resounding echoes of his commanding spell.

"LOOK AT ME—_**PLEASE, HARRY**_!"

Harry's head snapped abruptly in Draco's direction, glasses glinting in the sunshine. "Um?" he could be heard to say, faintly.

_Now, that did the trick_! Draco gasped in relief and blinked rapidly, staggering forward, feeling as though his lungs were bursting. Oh—oh, yes, it _did_! Did the job right smart and Draco felt triumph of a sort previously unobtainable except in Quidditch matches at Hogwarts, when he was Snitch-snatching from uppity Ravenclaws—and then the self-satisfied flare over his own prowess was totally lost in the subsonic shattering of Harry's multi-layered protective wards—_and_ a complex and contrary Charm far greater and more powerful than they ever were.

There was a shocking, blinding flash of white-blue incandescence (all the best and strongest magic generally resulted in Wizards and Witches blinking a bit afterwards and seeing electric blue spots), and an inverse explosion, entirely muffled by Draco's lingering Silencio. He was summarily flung straight through the straggly baby rosebushes (they caught at his knees and attempted to dig their nasty little claws into his trousers, the buggers) and ejected into the confines of No. 12's rear yard. Reeling, Draco found his way over to Potter in three great stumbling strides, to fetch up before his life-long obsession, red-faced and panting like a blown racehorse. He stood there gawping for a full three seconds, catching his breath, feeling stupidly idiotic again, because there was Harry, _finally_.

"Draco?" Potter was clearly puzzled. He raised his eyes to meet Draco's and blinked slowly and curiously, as if attempting to focus clearly, even though he had his spectacles perched right on his nose. "Malfoy?"

_Just the one look. _

"Harry!"

From Draco: a tentative hand extended out to a shoulder, lightly falling on a wrinkled, washed-out orange Muggle t-shirt, finding the bone and muscle underneath; taking the handful of warm, breathing flesh captured into a bloody death grip; not letting go. From Harry: a grubby palm extended up and out in return, dirty with potting soil and stained green from weeding, coming carefully to rest on Draco's one canted hip.

"What?" Harry's lips parted. He licked them and Draco was so hard. So, so hard.

One more small step for Draco, bringing him a hair's-breadth away from his goal; a matching half-pace for Harry and then Harry's musing eyes were brilliant and free of fog as they met Draco's full on; oh, so wide open and brimming with promise, and the only set of eyeballs Draco ever wanted to view across the breakfast dishes for the remainder of his earthly days.

One exclamation: "Harry!"; Harry's parted lips, dry from a day in the summer sun and physical labor; smooth, pink and beckoning, opening on a question he never had a chance to finish asking; his features blurring, whizzing past Draco nearly too quickly to comprehend, even though this surging forward to meet each other was accomplished in such excruciating slow motion Draco thought he'd expire from extreme old age before those lips met his, and then their lips were actually meeting, finally—for real. _Finally_.

_Only one look required; just one taste. _

To begin with, that is.

Now clamped together, key into lock, fingers clutching; now falling in unison, avoiding rake and barrow and trowel by coincidence only; now tearing at buttons and flies and extraneous cloth; now biting Harry's neck fiercely to brand him solely as 'the property of Draco Malfoy'; now Harry yanking Draco's slippery locks of pale hair hard, harder, to bring him closer, deeper, _in_; mouths coupling, edges hermetically sealing; now hips shoved together, no—_slammed_ together (hands wrapping hands caging cocks, crushed by pelvic bones knocking and flesh pressing) _and now_—finally, finally – a blissful rocking motion, carrying them both away on a swell of Aphrodite's making.

Now coming! (One touch! That's all it took!) Now shouting 'round Harry's stabbing tongue through the brunt of that incomparable rush, as it was bloody impossible to keep quiet and Harry was arching his spine in feline glee as he rubbed against Draco's palm furiously. They were both rendered damp and sticky; grains of soil and flower seeds and saline in a fertile cloud all about them as they rolled over and over across the newly mown grass and the neophyte perennials, scattering the gathered wilting weeds willy-nilly.

Shoes toed off; clothes Vanished. Scorching late afternoon sun, beating down, burning into Draco's exposed shoulder blades and whiter-than-white back as it flexed, and Harry squinting up at Draco, his narrowed eyes tearing as he fingered silver-white tresses gilded honey-gold by the light. There was mingled spit for lube and Harry lapping soulfully at Draco's fingertips, whimpering "Now, Draco, now!" and how could he not instantly leap to do whatever Harry might desire? Erect again already (as if they'd not just both spent themselves completely but a moment ago) and his cock was so fucking swollen, it was bloody fucking _magic_ singing through them both, and Draco's dick was thrumming with pent-up tension and Harry's was, too. _Harry's_ was.

Push, shove, inch by inch, Draco's thighs quivering with careful effort (the befuddled Muggle neighbors on their doorstep, exclaiming foolishly over their fallen clay pots and scattered geraniums). "Silencio!" Harry growled and then it was only the wet, salacious sounds of Draco and Harry snogging gape-jawed whilst the world burnt bright about them—blue, yellow, grass-green—and another long, sliding inch-by-inch, till Draco was fully seated in the depths of Harry's gorgeous bum, his aristocratic nostrils flaring as he exerted every ounce of will _not_ to bloody come _right this instant_ and all the while Draco's plebian, salt-of-the-earth Harry dug his heels into Draco's waist and hissed imprecations. "Fuck me at once, you great idiot git!"

Draco's brain cells seared away into thin air as he hauled his clenched arse off Harry's hole by sheer force of will, withdrawing only enough to gain a smattering of necessary leverage, though Harry was following after his every move like a ruddy terrier, arse eating Draco's cock up in gulps, and finally, finally Draco had torn himself sufficient inches in reverse to make it good for the whore only he knew lived in Harry's body (his sensual Harry, who loved to be touched; who was lewdly gasping for his pleasuring: red lips parting, rolling his midnight hair through the grass clippings and _begging to be shagged_, by all that was holy!) Merlin, here was that dearly recalled eager Harry of Draco's fondest, most precious memory, now literally _begging _to bepounded right into the lawn!

Astonished, ecstatic, Draco complied. He lashed up an honest-to-Godric real rhythm, finally: sharp reverse, long angle forward at speed, which slammed directly into Harry's prostate every single time—ooh, that was it, that was _it_!—and followed through on it with grim, grinning determination, tight-jawed all the while and tweaking pert rose-brown nipples with the hand he wasn't using to brace himself; gnawing along Harry's scarred kneecaps when he should've been breathing. Harry nearly strangled Draco to death clamping his thighs noose-tight together 'round Draco's diaphragm as he thrust his welcoming hips higher, ever higher, curling his spine in a play to present a most willing target in this heady tug-of-war. There was no atom of distance left between them, not one.

There was a blinding flash of light—internally, this time—and Harry's cock went supernova, spraying particles of potential life across the planes of Draco's breastbone and the continual flex of his shadowed chest, as he plunged and thrust. Draco choked on the wonder of it, the sight of Harry's gloriously red cock spewing (it only took the one look, see?) and flung himself randily into his own reinvention, still at jackhammer pace, to Harry's faint, mewling delight.

Falling, falling, and wide awake with it, afterwards. Bright-eyed and bleary, they stared glassily at one another across the half-inch of neatly shorn grass beneath their respective cheeks and silently agreed to take a breather before any possible next-step hexing and complicated explanations. Or maybe they'd just shag again, Draco decided, expressing this notion to Harry with a quizzical eyebrow. Harry nodded, his cleft chin wibbling ever so slightly as he swallowed, apparently in total agreement that this was quite a brilliant plan of proposed action and should be abided by faithfully and soon.

"Fucking parched," Draco managed to croak out, after a long minute laying like a fish out of water on Harry's greensward. Shyness and tongue-tying terror had descended abruptly when his limp dick exited Harry's arsehole; Draco was nearly speechless with the enormity of not knowing what to say next. Hadn't said anything yet, either of them, at least not worthwhile, but then Harry waved a casual hand in the direction of his gardening tools, indicating Draco wasn't likely to be immediately ejected from Grimmauld on the basis of assaulting an Auror. A small Muggle box with a handle sat near the barrow, made of some smooth, shiny material, Draco noted curiously.

"Butterbeer in the ice chest, Malfoy," Draco's true love muttered genially, pink-cheeked and happily post-coital and seemingly not at all demure or retiring. "Help yourself, do."

After a long cool draught, Draco was more himself again, except he bitterly hated the 'Malfoy' and preferred Harry not use it again when addressing him, ever. But that was merely a minor quibble, not worth quarrelling over.

"Want one?" he asked casually, tossing the other bottle gently in his hand, deliberately not looking over at Harry. He couldn't; what if Harry didn't and only really wanted him to go away now he'd had a drink, never to darken his Unplottable doorway again?

"Don't shake it like that, prat!" Harry snapped when Draco's hands trembled; the heat, his rising anxiety and recent sleepless nights taking a bit of a toll. "Be all foam, now, nit. But, yeah—give it over, would you?" he went on to request, far more kindly. "Ta," he added, cool as a cucumber, as if he always sat about starkers in his rear garden with sex-mad intruders who magically bellowed and shattered the neighbor's flower pots like so many ninepins. And then he sat up in one smooth motion, tucking his legs under him Indian-fashion, smirking a bit.

Draco flushed faintly, swallowing, and instantly looked elsewhere. His eyes had strayed to gaze at Harry whether he willed it or not; wasn't that always the way it was? And such a Harry! Draco mused that Potter should always look this way: tousled and fresh with shagging, with grass bits in his hair and a smear of mud on his cheek.

"I _am_ thirsty, thanks," Harry was certainly polite enough, now, Draco noted. He displayed none of Draco's awkwardness. "You wrung me quite dry there, Malfoy." But who could possibly hazard a guess as to what the next few minutes might bring? Certainly, not he, who'd been shagged and heartlessly abandoned by Potter once already.

Scowling, Draco tried not to glance Harry's way again immediately; this had devolved into a supremely stultifying moment conversationally and he'd not the foggiest clue as to how to ensure he'd be invited to stay.

They finished their respective butterbeers in a state of manly silence, each regarding their fingers, the condensation sweat coating the bottles, the disposition of the yard—pretty much anything other than each other. Having swigged his beer down in short order, same as Harry, Draco tucked the two empties carefully back in the cooler, regarding its construction with idle interest (it didn't seem to be Spelled and yet it was quite chilly inside) and then finally (finally!) ever so casually glanced over his shoulder at his nemesis, who was lounging back against the overturned barrow, still folded up like a human pretzel, his lovely pink cock swaying at half-mast and his shaggable bod stunningly naked, with the glow of the sun all about him in a radiant nimbus.

"Er—again?" Draco inquired hoarsely, his mouth dry as dust again and hoping like Hades Harry would agree. They'd discussed jackshite thus far (hadn't exchanged a single, stinking word; not about anything of note and yet, paradoxically, they'd never shut up the once on his birthday night, nattering away at each other like loony magpies the entire time) and Draco was very uncertain he'd done the right thing, imposing himself on Harry like this—as he hadn't been in the slightest when they'd been fucking like bleeding hares on crack only five minutes before.

Harry raised his chin in that challenging way he'd always had; green eyes seeking grey, measuring and matching. Songbirds warbled inconsequentially. A bit of a breeze caressed Draco's skin, sending goosebumps crawling over it; ittybitty nervous spiders on the lam. He shivered in general reaction, hearing the echoes of his question. _It was cold_, Draco thought forlornly, sitting naked by himself in the middle of a garden, even with the sunshine pouring down on the two of them. A golden river flowed at his feet and he was marooned on the sole island, naturally, freezing his arse off, metaphorically.

Harry finally bobbed that determined chin of his firmly and grinned at Draco's quirked eyebrows, a predatory curl settling onto his swollen mouth that had Draco's dick immediately red-hot and jerking an inch off his thigh in a blink of an eye.

"Oh, yes—_please_."

Just one look, really. That was all it required.

**0o0**

"Harry? Harry? Are you home?"

Hermione's voice echoed faintly through the hush of Grimmauld's newly redecorated Luna-style drawing room. Her calls to Harry's Floo and his Muggle landline had only reached the message-leaving service tied to each of them. _Harry's not home right now. Please leave him your name, contact information and reason for calling_, the disembodied female voice had advised her, politely.

"Harry? Huh, that's odd," Hermione's head hovered in the Floo, gazing intently about. There were no signs of life in the pleasant parlour and she couldn't hear any residual bustle emanating from the kitchen, either, though it was well past seven in the evening. "He'd said he'd be at home tonight."

"What?" Her boyfriend's question sounded behind her. "Harry's not in, Hermione? Well, leave him a message, will you? We're late as it is."

"Er—alright," Hermione answered, with one last suspicious glance about her. She was aware Harry'd gotten the final 'all clear' from St. Mungo's earlier and they'd been hoping to coax him out for drinks with the gang at the Leaky. She knew, as well, his cell phone had finally been returned just this morning via Post Owl, with a mysterious note attached that said only _I'm coming, Potter!_ And she knew, too, the Auror force had determined their Chief was safe as houses in his Unplottable lair, as long as he mostly remained there, despite the whacknut texter still at large. Perhaps he was out in the back garden, fiddling with the borders he prized so highly…or maybe he'd ventured out briefly, to grab the Muggle Chinese take-away he was fond of.

Personally, she'd her own theories about the ID of the text-stalker, and she and Ron had had to engage in some fast reevaluation in re the person of one Draco Malfoy, utter prat, who was apparently beyond smitten with their Harry. Who, though it pained them to believe, was just as barmy about Malfoy, once he managed to remember it.

Whatever; Harry was a big boy now, the Head Auror once again, and all better physically _and _mentally. He could more than manage himself and Malfoy, the tosser.

She wouldn't worry about it unnecessarily, Hermione told herself firmly, and loudly cleared her throat one last time, just in case. Golden silence was her only answer.

"I'll just send him a text once we arrive at the Leaky," she decided aloud, and her head promptly disappeared from the hearth. This brief intrusion—and the three messages left previous and the two subsequent texts sent after to Harry's newly recovered Muggle cell phone—all went entirely unnoticed by the owner of the house. He was indeed out in his garden, busy fucking his old school rival across the smooth upturned metal belly of the barrow, right between the welded crossbars, with the rubber wheels spinning wildly and Draco assuming the most gorgeous Downward Facing Dog Harry'd ever been privileged to see—and he was _not _returning any calls for the foreseeable future.

**0o0**

**Sunday p.m. Final entry in Head Auror Harry Potter's Healing Diary: Dear Old Thing, I suppose as you've been my unwanted but faithful confidante all along, I should let you know it's over. Finished, done with, happily ever after, ****The End****. I met him again (the git wouldn't leave off; kept accosting me through the rose bush hedges and trampling my just-planted pansies) and finally, finally, after one hell of a lot of arglebargle and fuss, I allowed him into my house and we sat down together and talked.**

**Well, we talked quite a long while later, actually. We shagged our sodding brains out first. **

**That Malfoy! He's still a prat of the first order and a total arse, after all these years. Going on and on sulkily about how we'd met again, quite by accident, in a Muggle club in Piccadilly, and he decided on the spur of the moment to try and pull me, as he'd had a few in him already and it was a **_**gay**_** Muggle club, so he'd thought…yeah. Well, he assumed correctly, for once, and we Apparated to his flat in Belgravia and got straight to the shagging. I fucked him the first time, and I must have been fairly soused by then, as I told him I'd fancied him some when we were still at Hogwarts, after. And he must've been drunker yet, because he told me he fancied me **_**now, **_**like houses afire****. And had, rather, for a very long time. **

**After that revelation, it was rather as if my brain exploded. A great big blinding light before my eyes, and I could finally see everything that ever happened between us so very clearly. All the fighting and the tussles and the hexing and the insults—everything had always been leading up to this, and we're both such nits we didn't get it; had never twigged we wanted to shag each other silly every night, and wake up in the same bed every morning, and have a bloody life together, me and him. **

**Gods, but he's such an utter berk. Looked at me with those intense eyes of his (I've always, **_**always**_** admired his eyes, Diary, no matter how he irked me otherwise; I thought they were so very full of passion and life, even when other people claimed he was distant and cold) after the second or third round and announced he rather more than merely fancied me, still. It was love for him (at first sight, the silly sod, at Madame Malkin's shop, as if one could actually fall into love at age eleven!) and I'd hurt him so much over the years we'd been acquainted, always acting as if he wasn't at all important to me. Forgetting. **

_**Forgetting**_**—that's the key, you know, Dear Diary. Maybe it was Mum or Dad, or even Dumbledore, but I've had another spell on me all along, hand-in-hand with the blood protection my Mum gave me to fend off Voldemort. And it was also for Love, and to protect me from harm. From a broken heart, get it? **

**It's known familiarly as the 'Sleeping Beauty', Draco says, and likely it was Mum who cast it, as she was especially gifted with Charms and had swotted up on all the old ones. He's gone and researched it recently and he's got books in his library at the Manor that Hermione would drool over, I bet. Chap's very well-read, really. I think he's even slogged through **_**A History of Hogwarts**_**, which is more than **_**I **_**ever did (or would want to!) **

**In any event, the Charm works something like an Obliviate to protect the recipient. If there's perceived to be any danger from the person they care for, the person they might love, they **_**forget**_**. They simply lose their memories of the time spent together; it all slips away and becomes vague and hazy. They draw a total blank when they come across that special person, and can't really recall them clearly when they don't. And, as to any love they might've felt, well…everything reverts back to start, really, the instant they're separated and the person who's under Sleeping Beauty continues on as if nothing ever happened. A bit like an Imperius or a Confundus, only far worse in a way. I don't think you can get at the memories even with Legilimancy or any of the truth serums, the Charm's so incredibly effective at blocking them. Blood Magic is nothing to sneeze at, really. The kicker is: it's completely up to the other person to lift the Charm. They've got to fight for it, if they really want it, and literally force the Sleeper to 'wake up' and remember them. **

**So, I was the Sleeper in this case (**_**Beauty**_**, Draco called me; git says 'complete with thorns', and then he'd the outright gall to laugh about it, the tit) and Draco was my **_**Prince**_**. And I didn't wish to recall June 5****th ****or any attraction I'd ever felt for him; in fact, I totally resisted it, because I didn't trust him, and neither did I trust in love after my experiences with Ginny and the others, and, most importantly, I truly didn't want to open myself up for yet another world of pain. And too, I wasn't allowed by the machinations of the bloody Charm.**

**You know, Diary, there's so many different ways of being a cowardly git: you can face down a Dark Wizard bent on utter destruction and still be a faint-hearted twat. It takes raw courage to admit you love someone to their actual face, especially when you're expecting them **_**not**_** to care for you in return, and Draco's beat me to it, no contest, at least on that front. It took a great deal of liquid bravery for me to even mention I fancied him in that Muggle club. I **_**truly**_** didn't desire him before that, Diary; could've sworn that I absolutely despised him under Wizard's Oath or Veritaserum and been one hundred percent correct, and the Charm would've protected me to the very end. I never would've known this feeling. I'd have **_**died**_** not knowing this. My loss—**_**our loss**_**—would've been incalculable. **

**But then—I **_**did**_**. I saw him right before me, practically arse over tea kettle over my brand-new barrow, and I needed him—**_**I need him now**_**—and somehow the Charm understood that and released me, finally, and gave us both another bleeding chance. It just took one look. Right across my now bollocks-up perennial borders (thanks to Merlin ****and**** Hermione, they're magical plants) and the pile of raked-up grass clippings, and the idiot was Shouting like a bloody banshee and falling all over my wards and straight into my arms. **

**Or I was in his, perhaps. It doesn't matter—it was **_**us**_**, together. His hands, Diary—they're bloody beautiful. I never want to be without them. **

**Still, it did require far too many fateful twists and turns over the years to arrive where I am now, sitting in **_**our **_**drawing room with Draco on my brand-new sofa right beside me, watching the Muggle telly with me and scarfing up all my precious store of beer nuts, crisps and leftover take-away pad thai. **

_**Casablanca**_** is an excellent film, for being Muggle, but I don't see how Bogie ever managed it, walking away from Bergman like that. **_**I**_** couldn't manage it. Too cruel. The last thing I'd ever want to do, really: wound someone who loved me—and yet that's exactly what I **_**did **_**do, fuck it. I walked away—or rather, I woke up beside him at four o'clock in the morning on June 5****th**** and bloody panicked and then scampered out of his flat like a daemon fleeing Hades. Well, Apparated to Battersea Rail Station, drunk as a badger, but you know what I mean, Diary.**

**And then I went to Sleep again and woke up in St. Mango's. And he couldn't get near me to rouse me, to rile me up and force me to remember. He didn't even realize I'd forgotten for ever so long. **

**The other thing, Diary. It's as though I took him, too, that night, in a very real way. He gave me himself, rather as if he was the present I'd always wanted but never knew to ask for, but on **_**his**_** birthday instead, in that ironical way things work out. And then, after, when I said nothing about it—didn't Owl or Floo, didn't text or ring him, didn't contact him in any way—that must've been bloody awful. Not a sodding word from me, when he'd stripped down all his defenses and came right out about caring for me and having done so for eons. But he didn't give up, either, even if he was rather a silly twit about the whole thing, not returning my cell to me straight-away and sending me piss-poor poetry and blackmail pictures and Merlin knows what else to the poor folks on my Contacts list instead. He's a real prince, my Draco—**_**not**_**. I don't know how much apologizing I'll be doing on his behalf, but I suppose it's worth it. **

**Merlin, yes…it **_**is**_** worth it. Whom am I kidding? That prick's my fucking ****Prince****. **

**In any event, he's moved in to Grimmauld Place, as of today, and I've been given a clean bill of health by St. Mango's staff as of this morning. Draco had already Owled my Muggle cell back to me by Post, though he insists he's keeping my denim jacket for some reason, known only to him. Odd, that. Git **_**never **_**dresses down if he can help it. Oh, well. **

**Ron and Hermione ('Robert' and 'Harmony', hah! What a frigging hoot!) are alright with the situation, or so Hermione tells me, despite the fact it's Malfoy and all. Nice to know one's friends can trust in one's choices, when it comes down to the wire. It's alright, though. We'll be fine, I'm sure, even if other people quibble a bit. It'll all work out. Mum set it up that way, I think, to make it foolproof. Trust me, it nearly was, Diary—foolproof, that is to say. We were total arses all along the way, both of us. But she must've really loved me, my Mum, to protect me in so many ways—my life **_**and **_**my heart. And so must my own personal git-in-residence, to want me so much he braved hostile Gryffindors and Grimmauld's Fidelius, ancient Blood Magic Charms and Aunt Andy's unique take on extracting information. **

**And I love **_**him**_**, Diary****. So much.**

**0o0**

"—and it's not as if you don't know where you can always find me!" Draco was complaining. "Duh, Potty—_Manor_. I'm always checking in with the elves there. Leave me a frigging message, why don't you?"

"Ah, yeah, well…" Harry stalled. "I think I kind of didn't keep your card, you see, and then I couldn't recall even running into you in the first place. 'S the Charm thingy, Draco, acting up. Did I tell you they found me in Battersea rail station? I must've Apparated there—you're in Belgrave Square, aren't you?"

"Silly git," Draco grumbled, and fiddled with the sugar bowl, pursing his puffy, much snogged lips. "Can't believe the nerve of you, not taking my cell number along, Harry. It's unlisted, you realize! And you could've been assaulted by Muggles and killed outright! It was the middle of the night, Potter—there are unsavouries out and about, you know! Common criminals! Utter idiot prat! Leaving me to worry like that." Draco was ticked off, but the flush it lent his porcelain skin was breathtaking, in Harry's humble opinion. "Damn near killed me, after. Didn't know what to make of you." He abandoned the handle of the sugar bowl and plucked at the twisted sheets next, restless. Then he tugged viciously at the loosely-tied belt of Harry's other bathrobe he'd wrapped carelessly round his fit dampness—the raggedy old plaid one Harry had lent him after their bath. It slipped a bit, and Harry caught his breath sharply at the sight of all that expanse of delineated chest.

"Um, sorry," he replied, lifting his shoulders apologetically and stoically pouring out more tea. They'd a breakfast tray between them on the bed, which they hadn't once left in the last twelve hours except to visit the lav—and have a mind-blowing and very sloppy shag in Harry's claw-footed tub enclosure.

"You should be," Draco scolded, regarding the frayed weave of the bathrobe belt as if it offended him mightily. He raised his smoking grey eyes and glared fiercely at Harry instead. "Oblivious nit."

Harry grinned at the tea tray like the blithering idiot he'd been Transfigured into—he literally couldn't stop himself. Having company for breakfast was better even than knowing he finally had all his memories back in order (except the really grotty ones which involved vomiting up the excess of alcohol, thank Merlin). And his brand-new housemate was more than merely decorative, with all that shiny silky silver-gilt hair of his tangled down his bare back where Harry's hands had mussed it, and those glorious pecs rippling smoothly when he shifted, still damp from their bath, and the thin cotton sheet tented over his thighs, which was doing absolutely not a bleeding thing to obscure his incipient erection. A very nice erection, too: hefty and thick, it fit Harry's various orifices like it had been made for them, key into lock.

Harry grinned even more widely, in a totally sunny, soppy manner. He didn't want to think of lost time at all; he wanted to think of the future, which was suddenly a great deal rosier than it had been just yesterday afternoon.

"How soon to bring your things over, Draco? This morning, maybe? We could go flying after?" Harry was eager to get this new life of his started. "I've all these really brilliant brooms in the shed and it's beautiful out. We could make a day of it; run down to the coast, maybe. Have supper somewhere nice to celebrate."

Draco, who'd been staring intently at him, instantly returned his searching gaze to his lap full of interested cock and seemed to be all at once oddly shy, licking his lips nervously, long fingers restless around the chipped pottery mug Harry much preferred over Aunt Andy's fiddly little tea cups. "Um," he muttered, apparently addressing the bed sheets, "you're sure about this, Potter? You won't go changing your feeble excuse for a mind in a day or two? Wake up bright and early and forget all about me again when you return to the Ministry on Monday?"

"Oh, no!" Harry assured him, shaking his head vigorously. "Absolutely not! You're not exactly the forgettable sort, Malfoy, trust me. And I really do believe Mum's Charm can't affect me anymore—and certainly not if you're right here, prat, warming my bed."

He batted his lashes, fully aware his green eyes were one his best features, and Draco, gratifyingly, swallowed with some obvious difficulty and sucked in a tortured breath, edging imperceptibly closer and jostling the tea tray, which was precisely what Harry wished him to do.

"You're quite hard to miss, besides," Harry looked up through those lashes of his and tilted his chin just so, knowingly flirting heavily, a foolish smile dancing at the corners of his own well-snogged lips. "A great blond bloke rammed up my bum like clockwork, every hour on the hour—I'm barely going to be to manage to get astride my broom as it is, you realize. We may have to hold off till tomorrow to go flying."

Harry manfully attempted to appear suitably saddened by this possibility, but, upon consideration, it would be ever so much more pleasant all around to simply hole up in Grimmauld and shag Draco. They could enjoy the lovely sunny weather in the back garden just as well as on a broomstick.

"Er. Agreed, Scarhead," Draco mumbled, though his half-hearted riposte was quite half-hearted and lacked his trademark acerbic bite altogether. He, too, seemed quite distracted. "Very difficult to miss, a Malfoy, even for a speccy git with a brain like sodding sieve." Still, Harry's bedmate seemed slightly more confident of a positive response when he reached across the tea tray and tweaked one of Harry's much-suckled nipples playfully through the thin cloth of his robe. "But," he added, his tone taking on a note of definite threat, "you'd better make certain you don't go mislaying me again, Potter, or I will forward those handcuff photos to the _Prophet_, just as I've promised. You shan't forget about me _then_. "

"Yes, dear," Harry snorted, stifling a manic giggle. Malfoy's tiny passing snits were, er, 'cute'. Damned 'cute' actually, as was the whole of him, though the git would likely murder Harry were he ever to say so. "I am now duly threatened. But why not remind me of your exalted existence right this very minute, Malfoy—if you're so concerned? Perhaps bribe me into silence at the same time? Two birds, Malfoy. One cock." Draco raised an interested eyebrow and leaned a little closer.

"And then perhaps I won't be so tempted to flee when you piss me off later," Harry continued, "the way you always do. _Prat_," he sniggered, artfully letting his robe slide off one tooth-marked shoulder in a 'come here and shag me speechless' kind of way.

"Prat?" Malfoy demanded.

The stare Draco gave Harry was hot and intense and exhilarating, all at once; a breathtaking mix of all the feelings Harry had ever dreamt of seeing cast in his direction by a comely bloke with a fabulous arse. In fact, Draco was looking at him much the way Ron eyed a plateful of rare filet mignon—or Hermione, after that fourth butterbeer. A drooling, sloppy, 'I'm going to tear your knickers right the fuck off and devour you!' sort of stare.

"'Flee'?" Draco snorted, visible offended. "Hardly! I'll wager you'll be in no condition to _flee_, Scarhead, not when _I'm_ finished with you," Harry's old school rival purred, a casual wave of his elegant hand Vanishing mug and tray and the ratty old borrowed bathrobe he was barely wearing. "And I'll _never_ be finished with you, Potter—believe me."

Harry allowed his own loosened bathrobe to fall off altogether, so it puddled 'round his waist in folds of ancient red-and-yellow tartan. He cocked his chin inquiringly and waited patiently to see what might happen next.

"You're a dick, Potter; always running off at the mouth," Draco remarked, rearing up on his knees. He scooted over, close enough to grip Harry's exposed throat, and lowered his ice-pale pate so that his teeth snapped alarmingly close to Harry's chin. "And not knowing your own arse from a hole in the ground. Don't even know what you're talking about half the time, I daresay. Sodding barmy twat, not remembering those handcuffs, at least. Special order, they were. And how could you forget your own underthings, Potter? That's not normal, you know. Most people remember their own—"

"Pah!" Harry scoffed, interrupting. "_You're_ the prick here, Malfoy. Took you long enough to come search me out, didn't it? Could've died of bloody old age, waiting for you."

"But I have, _now_," Draco taunted softly, nipping at the corner of Harry's smile. "Haven't I, Potter? Cornered you at last, you annoying little prick. And I know exactly what to do with you, too. To _remind_ you."

Draco, of course, was quite his old snotty, stuck-up self, at least in Harry's befuddled opinion; issuing empty threats of harm and humiliation in a gravelly, incredibly sensual grumble, but his grey eyes were sinfully molten as they travelled leisurely over Harry's pleasurably achy body. Harry took a breath in sweet anticipation and grinned besottedly, just like the soppy smitten idiot he'd become overnight.

"Er—alright," he replied, closing his eyes, soot-black lashes having done their job admirably as enticement for the big, bad Malfoy. "Fire away, then, Malfoy."

"I do believe a little payback is in order—for _my _suffering," Draco was whispering, nibbling his merry, determined way across Harry's lips. Harry sighed his satisfaction with this act of aggression, and allowed his head to loll back fully. "Let's start with a very simple Sticking Charm, shall we?" Draco growled menacingly, tugging Harry forcefully against that miracle set of washboard abs. "My fucking cock up your hungry arsehole, Potty. On the count of three, then? Begin!"

**0o0**

Broadcast text message received on the Muggle cell phones of the following Wizarding subscribers, issued by Caller ID 'Draco Malfoy': [Granger, Hermione; Weasley, Ronald; Tonks, Andromeda; Malfoy, Narcissa; Malfoy, Lucius (in absentia; calls forwarded to Azkaban's Floo-messaging service); _EntireLotofWeasels_ (owner-created distribution group); Parkinson-Zabini, Pansy; Zabini, Blaise; _TheGryffGang_ (owner-created distribution group); _TheSnakePit_ (OCDG); Shacklebolt, Mr. & Mrs. Kingsley; _StupidAurors_ (OCDG); _Harry'sOtherFriends_ (OCDG); _Mum'sReallyDistantRelatives_ (OCDG); _MugglesOfInterest_ (OCDG); _AssortedVIPs _(OCDG)]; _FrenchMalfoys_ (OCDG) , as of July 31st, 12:01 a.m.: _I'm sure UR all wishing Harry a Happy Birthday at this very moment. I know __**I **__am. Please see image attached, of Harry in silly hat, blowing out far too many candles. In honour of the occasion and to welcome his new permanent houseguest, URS truly, I take it upon myself as such to invite U to a surprise party for Potter at a location currently under Fidelius, but known to those who need to know it, to commence promptly as of four o'clock this very day, Potter's auspicious date of entry into this vale of tears, and to end only when the Charmed champagne fountain is exhausted. UR presence __**and**__ presents are required for Potter's continued comfort and happiness. Please be aware that only sudden death and childbirth are sufficient excuse to skive out on this invitation. Attendance is __**REQUIRED**__. Longbottom, that last does refer to __**YOU**__. Potter prefers meaningful trinkets, Quidditch supplies and gift cards. Housewarming gifts also welcome, in honour of new décor and mine own residency. Truth or Dare to begin as of ten o'clock; Spin-the-Bottle as of midnight. Formal supper seating as of seven o'clock, promptly. Complimentary child-minders provided, as well as guided Portkeys for those unsafe to Apparate or Floo after the festivities are ended. No Muggle strollers. No shoes in the house. Please be dressed appropriately for the event. Weasel, that means __**YOU**__. No RSVP necessary. I'll see U all at 4 p.m. on the dot this afternoon OR KNOW THE REASON WHY. XOXO, Draco Malfoy _

Finite.


End file.
